Reflections On a Doldrum Year

Whilst discussing this past year and the prospect of a new, perhaps more uplifting one on the horizon with a friend yesterday, I found myself uttering the words, “I’ve never been so excited to put a needle in my arm.” If, in the late stages of last year, I somehow knew that my mouth would be forming this sentence, I’d have assumed I’ve hit some sort of rock bottom, wondering how I, a person who truly fainted the last time I had bloodwork done for an annual physical, managed to develop this habit. I wouldn’t have been able to anticipate the events that would shortly follow, and the overwhelming amount of anxiety paired with the slight optimism a new number in the calendar year brought me now seems humorous in hindsight. It’s not rare for the winter months to stir a potent concoction of melancholy and needless recollection and analysis in my head, and though many think pieces will be written about the year that was 2020, the majority of which will undoubtedly be much more eloquent than this, I can’t resist the impulse to try and wrap my hands around this period of time that has slipped through so many of our fingers. So how does one reflect on a year that in many ways, wasn’t, yet also rattled our brains with unending news cycles and new alarms?

In December 2019, I found myself scrambling to find a new apartment, my previous home for five years having been sold with little notice from my landlord. For many reasons, it was to be a major change, and I wasn’t looking forward to uprooting my life during the holiday season. Prior to this news, I had assumed my next move would be moving to Europe for the next chapter of my life, daydreaming of living some writerly existence in Amsterdam, pensively smoking cigarettes on the canal and wearing chunky knit sweaters with much postulating and conjecture. My shortened timeline led me to consider moving back home and finding an apartment in Detroit. Cheaper living to plot my next steps, and closer proximity to my family and family of friends. In my haste, I found a room in an apartment in Bushwick, privately thinking that it would most likely be a 6-month endeavor before I took the plunge to return to my roots or sell my things and escape abroad.

On New Years Eve, with the help of a dear friend, I managed to move my possessions down the two flights of stairs of my old place and up the two flights of my new one, my lack of a suitable exercise regime and impending foray into my 30s announcing themselves by way of labored breathing and aches in new places. A solo wake ensued at the home I was to leave behind as I swept the floors and scrubbed the surfaces where many memories were buried. The otherwise mundane acts of leaving keys on the counter and buying one last beer from my bodega to drink on the stoop seemed ceremonial in nature. Demarcations of a past life being left behind and a plunge into the unknown, a period I anticipated to be a stasis between chapters, an interlude.

Due to the mental and physical toll from that day, I had no plans of being celebratory and ringing in the new year. 8PM, sitting in an empty room, save for the towers of boxes that surrounded me. At the behest and much appreciated nagging from another dear friend , I managed to rifle through my boxes and unearth a suitable outfit for a party she invited me to. An hour later, I surveyed the skyline of Manhattan from a cab window as I crossed the Brooklyn Bridge into the city. We found ourselves drinking champagne at a tattoo shop in the Lower East Side, hearty laughter and refilled glasses rendering me unable to indulge in mental reenactments of my day or aimless hypotheticals about what the future would bring . The urge for nicotine and a lack of resources led me on a half-drunken journey to the nearest bodega, confetti lining the sidewalks and the excitement in the air imbued with displays of alcohol-fueled antics spurred by the status of the special night. Upon my return to the party, a very attractive couple asked me if I wanted to smoke with them outside, and I wondered internally if this was some sly prelude to a proposition of a threesome. The many glasses of bubbly I imbibed had me convinced the woman in the equation wouldn’t be an issue for me, but it was of no difference as the opportunity disappeared into the ether. I thought the slight possibility, even imagined, of a mildly uncomfortable yet titillating sexual dalliance could only mark the beginning of a year that would define itself by adventure and new experiences, though possibly not those involving a vagina.

In March, the businesses started to close and the air become quieter, save for the echoes of applause that reverberated through our neighborhoods at 7PM in recognition of those on the front lines, and the ever-present sirens, reminders of a crisis we were told would last some weeks to months. Hand sanitizer and face coverings became cornerstones of a perverse gold rush, and it was now commonplace for me to carefully wipe down my groceries with soap and water that, by request, had been left on the steps outside. I took my last ride on the subway early in the month, in a train car that was so packed it now seems unfathomable, and my vocabulary changed with the advent of social distancing. Xs were placed on the floors of businesses, with no treasure to be found but the slight relief that if you stayed tethered to the one that was yours, your chance of catching Miss Rona might decrease. The sickness economy boomed, and the walls of my new home quickly formed the bounds of my universe.

In the before, it was an unspoken assumption that in times of crisis, our country should come together for the greater good and attempt to put aside differences, to try and mend. We’ve now seen how scarcity, depravity, and uncertainty become the turnkeys for primitivism and tribalism. Our nation’s emphasis on individualism and allegiance to the flag has resulted in blind eyes to the other and an inability to renegotiate false narratives presented to us from an early age. People shirking their responsibility to protect their neighbor because would-be moral mandates violate their individual rights. Protective pieces of cloth made political, when the only sacrifice made when worn is unmatched accessories. As weeks passed, the increasing lack of empathy seemed more pervasive than ever.

The summer was marked by violence and reckoning. In May, the world witnessed the murder of George Floyd by the hands of a Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. 8 minutes and 46 seconds of video where a human being was able to ignore the cries of a man whose windpipes were being crushed by his own knee. A slow death with room for introspection. A grown man crying out for his mother. Later, we learned of the murders of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, months after they occurred. It makes one wonder if we’d ever know their names without the advent of camera phones. Tiny devices used to surveil us as we surveil those meant to protect. While half the nation decided to take the position that these murders weren’t the result of some racist sentiment which used to bubble under the surface of our populace and is now at full boil, others joined in solidarity, taking to the streets. Black people being killed disproportionately by the virus forced to cry out in protest at disproportionately being killed by other humans. Our nation it seems, has categorized some types of violence as tacitly acceptable.

Society slowing and the temporary closure of churches and schools yielded a dearth of mass shootings. No recent reporting of lone wolf white men who amassed arsenals in an attempt to gain vengeance on women who wouldn’t sleep with them or who wanted to take out their violent hatred on those of another race or religion, all fires stoked by internet refuges where flames in isolated pockets of cyberspace produce torchbearers who carry out their deeds in the real world. The violence hasn’t slowed though, and we’ve seen it become encouraged.

My previous understanding was that this violence was uniquely American, that for some reason our society was marked by a decay that is unique to us. Now, it seems that this cruelty and vitriol remains untapped in every human. Many, including myself, have made America a scapegoat for all that is wrong in the world, but our country just gives us the tools to act on our worst impulses. Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece, our nation taking corporeal form, and its citizens armed with guns and a virus in lieu of a pair scissors. Police violence in France, the increasing isolationism of the United Kingdom, rampant homophobia in Poland, the extermination of LGBTQI folx in Chechnya, the Uyghur genocide in China, SARS in Nigeria…

“Watching the world go by” is a phrase that is oft-romanticized, but when the world is seemingly on fire, pie-in-the-sky thought often segues to alarmist horror. One of my personal revelations during this intense time of solitude has been my experience vacillating between intense calm and anxiety, like my body is somehow trying to calibrate properly, moving the markers once more for “highs” and “lows,” of which mine have been self-manufactured and owed to seeds of doubt and nervous anticipation. I have many friends who undoubtedly have been impacted more severely by the events of this year than I have - some have passed and been hospitalized, others have lost their jobs, a dear friend lost their home to a fire of the non-metaphorical sort, and I’ve seen others fall prey to their brains for the first time as the pressures of the world slowly close in. But the gift of stillness I’ve been given while others scramble has given me the ability to bear witness to the sublime as well.

As we eagerly wait for this miracle drug that will shield us from potential physical suffering and the almost assured mental instability that accompanies the potential of the potential, I’ve allowed myself to wallow (bask seems too forthright) in the other things I’ve been able to witness from my tiny universe. I’ve seen those in my life who have had new loves blossom, others engage in work that is meaningful to them and impactful to the world, and some who rebounded beautifully from roadblocks that were presented before them. I sit at my desk reflecting, my winter coat that I wore when I once waxed about the possibilities of this year now hanging once again from the hook on my wall. I was 29 the last time I returned home, and the reality of 31 is slowly inching up on me. A full year in hiding.

In many ways, this has been a doldrum year. We’ve all collectively waited for the opportunity to exhale and resume our past life, and though we’ve all experienced our borders close in a bit, and a city that once seemed sprawling to me has massively shrunk in scope, my mind feels more expansive than ever. I’m grateful for the stillness, the ability to reflect, to ask questions, to analyze. It’s a wonder to navigate this odd moment in history, where confines restrict us in so many ways, and still feel like I’ve shared experience with others. A haze still lingers in the air from the scorched earth of 2020 and old blazes still burn, their damage slowly revealing itself. Attempts to wave away the smoke are done in vain, but thank the doldrums for allowing us to figure out an escape.