A Note To Future Young Loved Ones, Written During The Pandemic:

A note to future young loved ones, written during the pandemic:

- Yes, I was scared during the pandemic. My parents were young enough to not die from the virus, but they both could have been put in the hospital by it, and we all knew that there wasn’t much room in the hospitals.

- For awhile, all of the billboards still had travel ads up, and it was creepy. It was, however, great fun to yell at them phrases like “You won’t kill me that easily, bub!” as we passed them on the highway.

- My two remaining grandparents were smart and stayed extremely isolated, but I was always worried that that they’d get it somehow anyway.

- Seeing older people in public gave me a little puff of anxiety and a “where are your children and grandchildren and younger friends? You ought not be required to get food on yourself. You are in danger.”

- Eventually, being seen in public without a mask on felt scandalous even if it wasn’t dangerous to others. Whenever I sat in the car in the parking lot (reading and waiting for my parents to be finished in the store, usually) without a mask on, and when people walked by and saw me through the closed windows without a mask, I felt vulnerable.

- Yes, people actually thought that it was their right to not wear a mask. It was as unbelievable then as it is now.

- I learned that time, like money, exacerbates traits already present in people when given in excess. You don’t automatically become a better person with more hours in the day.

- It was nice to have that extra time, though.

- I’m sure that by the time I tell you about this, people will have hushed up the fact that Black people died at disproportionate rates from the virus because of the systemic racism and injustice in the healthcare system, the job market, and the housing market, but do not forget. I don’t know what excuses you’ll hear, but had nothing to do with their phisiology, their willingness to wear a mask, or the protests, do you hear me? It was the racism.

- The most common phrases were “unprecedented times” and “uncertain times,” with a little bit of “unconventional times.”

- There were a lot of ads around coronavirus. I saw ads for face masks that emphasized patterns and colors for the whole family. I saw an ad that talked about how mints were helpful for combatting “mask breath,” whatever that was. Many ads spend the first half talking about how we needed to stay apart & social distance, while the second half was about the product. One ad for a Hotel company started with “do you remember... places?” and the whole thing advertised their hotels as having air you haven’t already breathed, wine that wasn’t in a box, and free toilet paper. The worst part? That ad basically worked on me, because every time I saw it, I opened a window and stuck my head out to breathe fresh air.

- We saw small businesses tank. It was horrifying. I personally feared that this would mark the hugest explosion in corporations ever.

- Jokes made during the age of the Spanish Flu became hugely popular. The mix of illness, self-deprecation, mask memes, and human commonality across time was incredibly attractive. I loved them.

- I missed things that I never realized that I would miss. I missed seeing my friends’ faces. I missed sprawling out in the back of the classroom like a prideful aesthete. I missed listening to the conversations of strangers in restaurants and dining spaces. I missed talking with people who weren’t my family.

- It was during this time that I began noticing that I sometimes had a lot of body dysphoria because it was harder to get distracted when there wasn’t constant chaos in the room around you.

- A lot of my friends graduated, and I couldn’t even hug them goodbye without wondering if I was indirectly killing a family member.

- A friend of mine who was touch starved even before the pandemic really struggled, and I just wanted to wrap her up in my arms, but there was no way to do so.

- I was so desperate to form close community like what I was missing in school that I downloaded social media. (P.S. Hi, tumblr!)

- We learned to live. We learned to keep moving. But it wasn’t easy, it wasn’t simple, and it wasn’t fun. I was middle class, and both of my parents kept their jobs, but most people had it so much worse. I can’t speak to their stories, though. I only have mine.

Much love,

The Past Calling Out