I am a female twenty-something, and the last time I wrote a post that started this way, we were two months into a deadly pandemic with no end in sight.
I am here to report that two years have passed, and there is still no end in sight. No end to the pandemic. No end to the emotional exhaustion of societal gaslighting, leaving the vulnerable behind and the cautious alone. No end to the hammer and the dance, to the arrival of new variants, somehow always 30-80% more contagious than the last, and to the collective illusion that the pandemic has passed, for the four to six weeks it lasts each time.
In the past two years, I’ve learned which of my friends and which of my family respect my boundaries. I’ve learned who will prioritize a party over my health. Who will protest the nose snob I request before gathering together in person. I’ve learned who I would really trust with my life, and who I wouldn’t. The list is short. It’s shorter than I thought.
Some semblance of normalcy has returned. Moments I’ve longed for- rock climbing with friends, seeing families smiling and laughing on park benches- have returned, others still remain at a distance. I miss sitting quietly in a coffee shop, watching my surroundings, and writing. I want to eat out for dinner indoors in a quiet cozy tavern with a fireplace. I want to stay in a hostel with strangers. Perhaps most innately, I long to be held. I want to be hugged. I want physical intimacy, but of the vulnerable, not sexual sort. I want human touch, human connection. I don’t know when I will get those moments back.
In many ways, pandemic was only the start. In the time since it started, Russia invaded Ukraine, started an unprovoked war that has killed thousands and propelled the entire world into what feels like crippling, suffocating inflation. My father was diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer. It’s been 15 months since it was detected. I’ve moved home, helped with care-taking, and watched a disease whittle away at my father’s body and at my father’s spirit. The impact it has had on my family is one I wouldn’t wish on even my fiercest of enemies. I am a female twenty-something, and last week, it a draft Supreme Court opinion leaked revealing that SCOTUS plans to overturn Roe vs. Wade, removing federal abortion protections and allowing states to legislate away reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy. I could be persecuted for seeking an abortion one day.
What can I do other than cry sometimes, and laugh at all other moments? This is all funny. Funny because it is absurd. Funny because it is laughable. The type of funny that turns into crying after about 45 seconds of cackling.
It’s funny because after all of this, you’d think appreciation for human life would improve. You’d think the desire to improve human life would improve. It’s funny how the world changes, and how we as a people remain unchanged despite it.
These days, I find myself more able to appreciate the small moments. I’ve gained more freedom than I had two years ago, mentally and physically. But I also find myself unable to truly relax. Unable to resist absorbing others’ anxiety and frustration. Unable to let the good things last; unable to sit in joy without the foreboding that comes with it. I have to figure out a way to let myself be without the guilt of my joy coming at the expense of others’ inconvenience.
These were the ramblings of a disgruntled twenty-something.
Life of a Disgruntled Twenty-Something 