What I Miss Most

There are a lot of things I miss about pre-COVID life. I miss seeing my friends and some of my family. I miss going to school, going out to eat, or going to the park with my little cousins. I miss human contact. But out of everything, I mostly miss the commonality, the reliability of everyday life. I miss going to school, the feel of having a schedule, the predictability of it. I miss the structure that we don’t even realize is there. I miss having a time to work and a time to relax. When you know what’s next, there’s something to hold on to. Something to look forward to. In quarantine everything blurs together. Time becomes nothing but a social construct. There is no reason that I should work now, or I should sleep now, or I should do anything. Pre-COVID, there was familiarity and hope. You make plans, you dream, you imagine. You work when you need, and use the rest of your time to relax. You feel good, even when you’re working, because you know that you have something to look forward to. Now, that doesn’t happen. You can’t look forward to something when there is nothing special about any other day. You can’t dream when everything has been sucked out of you. You can’t make plans for the future when you don’t know what the future holds. You can’t schedule things when time is not but an illusion. You can’t imagine when you can’t wish for something to happen, because there is so much more that you need to happen before life can go on. You can’t feel good when your mind is blank and grey. There’s no hope if everything is painted over in a wash of monotony and boredom. Here there are no strong opinions, just a wash of indifference. Here, you can't afford to feel, because if you open that door, the immense amount of emotions will come crashing in and drown you. Instead, you just hope and pray that it will all be over soon. That all your problems, given enough time, will wash away. That one day, you can open that door again.



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