Sharon Leach
How to answer that question in the context of having lived through possibly the most universally challenging year we as humans have ever had to? Because, truly, this has been an unusual and terrible time for all of us in this commonwealth we call our world. With people’s lives at risk every day, and already so many lost, it has been unfathomable, to my mind at least, the scale of loss one little virus (or maybe a bat?) has wrought. But even more unfathomable is that I’m still here, alive and healthy and a testament to the profundity of a faith I did not realise I still possessed.
As the virus loomed, then took shape, I was never more conscious of my insignificance in this indifferent world. I lived in a state of stomach-churning dread. In those early days as we tried to unravel the mysteries of this coronavirus, I was positive I’d be a casualty; I checked some of the crucial boxes for underlying conditions.
Thank God, so far, I’ve remained unscathed. So far.
The fear that coloured those first days, weeks, and months! But not just the fear, though. My god, the loneliness. Listen,
I’ve always been a loner. I live alone. And that was just how I liked my life. In those early days, though, I just felt lonely. Mindnumbingly so. Why don’t I have a pet, I kept asking myself. I could not pull myself out of bed without speaking to my best friend in London.
In addition to which, I was mourning the loss of my father who’d only passed the November prior, and trying to come to terms with what it meant to feel orphaned.
What I clearly remember in those lightless first days, weeks and months is the seemingly endless crying jags I would go on; I would be somehow overtaken by a tsunami of tears. I remember well bolting from my desk one day at work for the refuge of my car and just weeping for about half-hour for how wretched and doomed I felt. I was going through something — everybody was, although at the time I thought it was just me — and I never wanted my parents more than I did in those moments.
But, amid loss, there have been gains too, and much to celebrate. Because, what I soon discovered was that I found a community of people who were just as worried, just as scared, just as fraught, just as ravaged by insomnia as I was. My tribe! Social media became a lifeline, and, as those long frightening days rolled on and we commiserated by sharing jokes and memes (oh, those memes!) I found I was focusing less on myself and more on these people on the fringes of the virtual world.
Community. What a beautiful thing! As this year grinds to a close, I think about the bounty I’ve also reaped. The new friendships that are so treasured.
Old friends with whom I reconnected, and who showed me that although we were all in different boats, we were nevertheless all in the same storm. There is my apartment that I was able to buy this year, even in light of a significant salary loss. (I’m thinking about my good friend who generously, without being asked, provided me with the down payment, and who herself only just a few short weeks ago, experienced the most devastating of losses. And that other friend who arranged a lucrative freelance gig, proving that when one door closes, so many windows open. They know themselves.)
Truthfully, I still get a little fearful, nine months in. But vaccines are here and I hold out hope that one day this dreadful time will be just a footnote in history, and we’ll finally be able to stop wearing these got-damn masks…
So, how am I? I guess the only answer that will suffice for now is: Better.