I’m Not Sure What to Call This One

Blog, it’s been a while! Today’s article is more of a check-in and less of a themed, thought provoking piece. Life offline in the past month has been brutal, whether it was the emotional stress of being in a global pandemic for 8 months, having a family member struggling with dementia, getting used to less sunlight every day, or the upcoming election (along with many other things), my mental health definitely took a hit in October. What’s frustrating is that it happened during the same time that athlete state of mind had its first monthly fitness challenge, the Colorado Trail Challenge. I’d had big plans to have an in-your-face social media campaign documenting my experience through it. Obviously, to those of you following along, that didn’t happen.  

After seven months of living the way I have been, you’d think that I would have gotten the hang of things. For months, I’ve woken up every day around 7:30am, watched Netflix or YouTube during breakfast, read until 9:30-10am, gotten my checklist for the day done (including work, chores, etc.) finishing by 3:30pm, at which time my mom usually gets home from work, hung out with her and my dad (when he finishes work – usually around 5pm) until dinner, and then by 9:30pm I’m back in bed, watching Netflix until I fall asleep to restart my groundhog day all over again. As far as hell goes, it’s not that bad. What I didn’t anticipate struggling with was the loneliness.

I’m no longer part of the community I’ve been used to for four years – one that was chock full of people. In my time at college, I was virtually never alone. At some points, that sucked, but for the majority of the time I loved it, loved the accessibility of my friends, loved the busy lifestyle. When I would come home for breaks or the summer, I spent most of my time working at Vineyard Vines, which was lovingly described as “a frat house” by a disgruntled customer a few years back. To be clear, it was a blast. I was surrounded by fun, outgoing people all day, I enjoyed helping customers, surprisingly didn’t mind folding clothes, and often got paid to play cornhole. In July, I made the decision to stop working until COVID wasn’t as dangerous, meaning I lost that socialization as well. I’m so thankful for my virtual jobs, but due to the nature of virtual jobs, there isn’t much socialization.

I realized mid-October that I was basically waiting around all day for my mom to get home and for my dad to finish work. When that realization hit, it’s like everything wrong with the pandemic hit at once and I was a mess. This seems to happen every few months, especially with the way that my family and I are living. I know the sacrifice I’m making for the health of my grandmother isn’t one that a lot of people are likely to understand or be able to conceptualize – it’s a big sacrifice. I miss people! I’m bummed when I have to explain my situation to people and instead of be willing to distance or mask up, they promise to see me when COVID ends. But we don’t know when that is. And it’s right now that sucks. The reality is, I’m not mad at these people, I’m frustrated with how the virus is being handled, specifically the lack of accountability and leadership needed to get things back to normal.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I struggled with finding purpose. Not “my purpose” in an existential way, more just what I was supposed to do every day. School was over, I was back home, not working, and not seeing people. Now, I think I’ve done a pretty good job at finding and living that purpose, major kudos to this blog – the added sense of accountability has been equally comforting and challenging. Yet it’s still that same sense of virtual socialization. Our parents used to lecture us – in middle school and high school as cell phones and laptops were becoming widespread – that texting and social media were not replacements for in-person conversations and relationships. That what we were investing in was fake and less than. Just like you, I rebelled against this, fighting for my beloved cell phone, knowing that to remove your online presence was to miss out on a whole part of your social life. Now, virtual socialization essentially is all that I have and it’s not enough. I miss hugging friends, laughing so hard I can’t breathe, catching up over breakfast and so much more.

When things get rough, I remind myself of the ways that I’ve been getting through this pandemic, pre-breakdown. Those include loving the extra time I get to spend with my family, getting this odd free time to work on myself, and using these feelings as an opportunity to learn what my values really are.

 I’ve learned that life without soccer really sucks. The minute I’m able to, I’ll be joining leagues and throwing myself back into the sport with new vigor. I realized that I’m not 100% sure that I want to pursue further education in social work. I got into and had planned to attend Boston College for the Advanced Standing MSW program in January but deferred because of COVID and am now realizing that it’s not necessarily where I see myself. Since leaving home for college, music stopped being a part of my life. I always dabbled in piano since my mom plays and have played either piano or guitar – of which I’ve picked up since the pandemic began – almost every day. I got the time to create a blog! There are so many decisions I would have been rushed to make and so many things I wouldn’t have had time to do had it not been for the pandemic.

It’ll be so much easier once we’re ten years out to look back and say, “oh, it wasn’t that bad” or “so many good things came of it.” That mindset is far away though. For now, I miss my friends, teammates, roommates, professors, that ball with all the hexagons on it, Miss Portland Diner, sporting events, large family gatherings, Hannaford, my coach, the library, not being nervous when people get too close…I miss so much. Until then, I’m following my mom’s advice: “Go to bed tonight and wake up tomorrow.”

This is a grossly vulnerable article for me and I hope that your takeaway from it is knowing that if you’re feeling similarly – even if your lifestyle changes haven’t been as drastic as mine – you’re not alone. The long-term effects of this pandemic are hitting us each in uniquely terrible ways. My struggle is not worse or better than yours, it’s just different. If you need help, but you’re not sure where to start, check out my resources page. If you want to connect to commiserate or share your experience, send me an email or hit up my DMs.