It Happened.

This past weekend while looking through the “on this day” feature on Instagram, a photo came up that gave me goosebumps. It was a picture of a completely empty shelf in Whole Foods that I had posted in my stories on March 5, 2020. It was a seemingly typical Thursday evening where I had popped in to grab a few things for dinner walking home from the subway after work. It was March 5th, and by that point everyone had heard about this thing called “the coronavirus” all over the news. That evening walking into the store I was definitely rolling my eyes when I realized how crowded it was. It was just another Thursday night, why was everyone at the damn grocery store? By the time I got to the pasta aisle, I was totally dumbfounded at how it was completely empty so I just had to take a photo. This is surely something we would all be laughing about in a couple weeks right?

As it turned out, no we wouldn’t be laughing about this in two weeks. Or four weeks. Or in six months. This week it’s officially a year later and we are desperate to get the word “pandemic” out of our vocabulary. In fact, just as I finally felt we really may be turning a corner and that the worst was over, Covid found its way directly into my house. 

Back in mid February, my parents found out that they had directly been exposed to Covid. By this point we had known people who have gotten it over the course of the last year, but admittedly there was still part of me that never wanted to think it would happen to us. I never wanted us to be a part of those statistics you see on the news everyday with the amount of current cases. A major reason why I moved was to ultimately be closer to family so I wouldn’t be alone in New York City, along with being close in case my parents needed me. Despite preparing for the worst, once the reality of it was upon us, I realized there’s really no way to prepare for the crippling anxiety of the unknown.

The worst part at first was the waiting. Knowing we were exposed and just waiting to see what (if any) symptom would pop up felt agonizing at times. “Is this seasonal allergies starting?” “Is my throat just dry?” “Wait, was mom just clearing her throat or is that a cough?” Sure enough, after a few days both of my parents started exhibiting mild symptoms. A full week after finding out about the exposure, both of my parents tested positive for Covid-19.   I thankfully didn’t have any symptoms that I could tell (besides being very tired which I attributed to the extreme amount of stress). My mom definitely had it the worst, and is still dealing with ongoing symptoms almost a month later. I know now we have been incredibly lucky that none of us wound up in the hospital like so many others I have heard about over this past year. The way the house is set up is an open-concept with 3 separate rooms and bathrooms so we could each isolate from each other. We had a pantry full of food and a couple of kind neighbors who left soup for us on the front porch. I am so thankful every single day that my parents didn’t need hospital care and finally have turned a corner with recovery.

I have always had anxiety in general, but this situation has sent it into complete overdrive. As soon as we realized that all three of us had been exposed, we immediately began to quarantine. We began wearing masks inside the house and my parents insisted that I isolate as far away from them as possible. I was just worried about them, and of course they were just worried about me. Every morning during those first two weeks I woke up dreading coming out of my room and finding my parents in worse shape from the day before. Every time I heard my mom coughing in the next room I winced. The house was draped with a cloud of loneliness and isolation defined by each of us eating alone in separate rooms and not watching Wheel of Fortune together. Every single day I am still asking my mom if she can taste or smell anything yet. (She can’t). Over the last year I have heard multiple stories and an entire array of different symptoms. Some are fine within a couple of days while some turn into long-haulers, and my head has been in a constant spiral thinking of all kinds of scenarios. I wasn’t even concerned with myself, my worst fear became not being able to do a damn thing to help my parents recover. 

I haven’t shared about any of this while it was happening simply because there was a stretch of days where I literally struggled to simply talk to people. It was borderline impossible to focus on work. I am truly blessed that I have a couple friends who checked in on us every single day without skipping a beat. I was so incredibly drained and anxious that I found it almost impossible to keep up any kind of conversation. At first I felt so guilty for shutting most people out, but I truly was living on autopilot. It wasn’t until this past weekend where I finally started to see the light. I never thought driving to Target could be so thrilling. I am not sure if I captured my thoughts adequately with this, but damn it felt good to be eating dinner at the same table again tonight. Be safe and stay well xoxo.