Quarantine and a Re-Examined Life
Quarantine means separation. It implies isolation. My quarantine has been longer than most because I had a difficult pregnancy last year and then have been home with a small baby since December. So I’ve been largely in my house for a year now. I’m fortunate to have a safe, comfortable home that allows me to think about the meaning of things since my basic needs are met. My psyche needs some attention and I’m trying to figure out what that means for my life. Maybe you are too.
We have all been separated, living in one kind or another of isolation from each other. The isolation of staying home if you are medically vulnerable, or doing the same but out of respect for those who are. The separation from close friends, casual ones. The separation from facial cues and body language that mask-wearing and physical distancing brings. Cutting the fat from extracurricular, fun activities down to only those that are purely necessary. Groceries, doctors, booze.
Working from home means no hallway conversations, no impromptu coffees, no “I’m going to Chipotle, do you want to come with me?” friend-building burrito bowl lunches. I worked in a small, awkward office in Washington D.C. for most of last year. Even though that wasn’t a party — or a “work family” by any means — my efforts to build community at my still newish job are now frozen to largely functional connections only.
I see my mother, outside. She lets her grandchildren hug her legs. We took a vacation together recently, to a remote cabin which felt wonderful and risky at the same time. Many of the decisions my husband and I make about our family’s approach to quarantine are so that we can still spend time with her in a way that feels safe. No grocery stores or shopping, no indoor visits, limited contact with friends. Our children have gone back to daycare, a center with reduced numbers and enhanced cleaning. That’s the riskiest thing we do, necessary for us to be able to keep our jobs and sanity. Believe me, we worked from home without it for three months and will never take childcare for granted again.
Even seeing my best friend feels a bit scary. She works in hospitality and organizes large events like weddings, which are still happening despite the restrictions. She came over six weeks ago to eat crabs on my deck and it started pouring. I didn’t invite her in. The friend of my heart, who I’ve known for 25 years, who I moved across the country with, who I’ve danced front-row at concerts with and cried over a card deck’s worth of shabby men with. I didn’t invite her into my home when it started raining. We sat on the porch under the umbrella and ate our crabs while maintaining our distance.
These behaviors are changing me. They are changing our culture. I have never heard so many people speak, share, and post about anxiety and inner turmoil. I feel like our nation and society is deteriorating before my eyes and all of the ways that I have interacted with it over the last thirty five years of my life will need to be re-examined. Never before has starting a family commune in Nova Scotia appealed to me like it does now. I joke with my aunt, who has three young kids, that we have enough children between us to start a new society. I’m half kidding. I cut my own hair in the bathroom and buy vegetables in bulk to pickle.
I don’t know how to get over this separation. When the public health crisis fades because there’s a readily available vaccine or herd immunity or another kind of lite apocalypse that takes precedence, I don’t know how I’m going to feel comfortable in a group of people I know, let alone a crowd of strangers. On a plane. At a concert. Networking, pressing the flesh, at a conference. All of this has been second nature to me for much of my life, sustaining even. But you don’t isolate from the world for a year and come back unchanged. Especially when everyone else has been doing the same thing, with their own challenges. Mistrust, doubt, anxiety, the careful stewarding of one’s bubble. These are major social fault lines, and they’re changing the ground under our feet.
If this is a separation from extraneous acquaintances and oversocialization, then I welcome that. The pressure to treat all friendships equally, and keep them up over time, is exhausting. Social media fossilizes this: people from all stages of your life, captured on a platform so that you can see their public lives. Girl who loved horses from your third grade class, kindly high school math teacher, husband’s MAGA second cousin, British guy from the train in Romania, etc. The last one I do want to keep eyes on, because every day in quarantine he’s painted his face like an art project and I like that. The racist second cousin, not so much.
That casual overexposure and “always on- plugged in- build your personal brand with every move” is tiring even to a perennial extrovert. There are some relationships and platforms I would like to just put to rest, but nicely, like when I put my baby down for a nap with a smile on her face. And then maybe not come back to. Goodnight, acquaintances. Hello real meaning? More time with my real babies, at a minimum.
The real meaning is the part I need to figure out next, really. This period in time feels like an opportunity to reexamine the life that you are living. You’re in the house, with your life. Paused so you can look at it from every angle. When I look at mine, it’s good but I am still trying to find what’s missing. Loving husband, two kids, stable job. Where is the fire? My fire.The essence, the eternal. I want to write more. I need to write more. I’m going to write more. I’m either going to decide I’m content being slightly above-average intelligent with a good enough job or just maybe figure out how to do something remarkable.
What do you want to do more of? What power do you want to build? My friend who is a doula skilled at birthing new children and projects says this experience can be grounding for humans who need help tapping back into our inner resourcefulness. We have massive, worsening problems to solve: a warming, weirding planet, skies full of ash, pervasive and destructive inequity, police violence, failing government institutions and educational systems, our shared anger and loneliness. Where will you point your efforts? Your soul? Let this separation be an opportunity to consider, to examine.
To the people out there making massive life changes in this time of upheaval, I admire and honor you. The new job-takers, the move to a new-placers, the young people questioning the assembly line demands of capitalism and professional life, the elders exploring their artistry, or TikTok for the first time. Whatever it is, good for you. If you haven’t yet made your next move, or you’re still in the examining and wondering like me, then I am with you. Right here, but separate.
