the aftermath

I pulled up the photo of me standing in a room full of investors and industry experts, with my high heel boots, my blazer, velvet top and leather leggings. A look completed with red lipstick. All the things that made me feel confident.

I stared at the photo and tried to remember what it felt like, to stand in front of people and speak. To pitch an idea I cared for so much, an idea I believed in with every fibre of my being.

I tried to remember the pounding in my heart, that at times was so loud that I felt like I could pass out.

I tried to remember how I fought the mumbling when I was on stage.

I tried to remember how I tried to keep my voice calm under the pressure of over a hundred judging eyes on me.

And I tried to remember the rush I felt as I walked off stage.

I tried to remember that feeling of being so full of life.

And I tried to remember the last time I felt that way.

But I couldn’t quite remember.

It felt like a dream, a dream I was trying to keep a hold of, but like all dreams, it was fading into reality with nothing but a faint aftertaste left on my soul.

We were in a pandemic. We were told to stay in. To stay at home, to save lives.

But no one spoke about the lives lost behind closed doors. No one spoke about dreams that died. No one spoke about the vibrant pieces of our souls that died with those dreams. No one spoke about the hours of productivity we lost from depression and anxiety, from isolation. No one spoke about the aftermath of telling a generation taught to get out, to stay in. Because somehow it was inhumane, to put your life in front of another’s.

And so, we shut our mouths. We swallowed our pain. We swallowed the deaths in us. Because people were really dying, and everyone knew that was more important than parts of us dying. We all silently accepted the sacrifice. We held on to parts of our souls that vibrated with life, the parts that took leaps of faith, went on adventures, stayed out too late, hoping to revive them when this was “all over”, when we eventually went back to “normal”.

Of course, not all of us experienced this. Some were fine. Some liked the isolation. Some even thrived in it. Some had the strength, the resilience, to find silver linings in each of the lockdowns.

And I did as well, for a while…

I tried to make the best of it. To see it as a good thing, something to help me slow down, find my way. Revaluate. Realign.

I dare say, I even thrived for a while. My boundaries were pushed and I grew as a result.

My dream dying was harsh, it was painful. But that gave space to a new dream being born. So I dreamt a new dream. And I did all the yoga classes. I queued for the supermarkets. I wore a face mask. I cooked all the home-cooked food (minus the banana bread). I went on the walks. I even found a man I really liked.

But a dream can sustain you for so long, when you’ve conditioned yourself to live off the collective energies of others. Netflix can entertain you for so long when all you want is to be in a room full of people talking about their dreams and ambitions. Friends can only love you so much when all you need is your mom’s hug. And you can only like a man so much when pieces of you are being chipped away day by day.

But of course, people are dying. We need to stay in. We need to save lives. But — and this may be controversial — we also need to mourn the parts of us that have died along with this pandemic.

We need to mourn the businesses that closed.

We need to mourn the friendships that ended.

We need to mourn the loved ones we lost without saying goodbye.

We need to mourn the hours we spent planning for things that never happened.

We need to mourn the endless bucket lists that never got ticked off.

And we need to mourn the chance at love we lost because we were too busy trying to figure out how to sustain ourselves in a defence mechanism designed to destroy us.

And while it seems bleak, I do believe there’s an end in sight. Maybe not in the next month, but eventually. But before that happens, I have a request.

If you are introverted and this pandemic has barely hit you, check on your extroverted friends. Check on the friend that was first at the party and last to leave. Check on the social butterfly. The friend that had her calendar busy three weeks in advance. Because this will have been the hardest thing we have ever overcome. We will have had to fight for the most valuable pieces of our souls with our hands tied behind our backs. We may have lost the essence of who we are. And we may be stumbling through a darkness you cannot understand. And we will need your light — that hopefully dimmed less — to guide us out.

And to those struggling, to those who have lost their identities, their sense of self, their dreams, their abilities to trust, you can fight. You have to. Find an image of you at your best and hold on to that, like you hold on to dreams after you wake up. Because the last lap is always the hardest. And a phoenix has to burn before it’s reborn.

Originally published at https://www.monologuesofalondongirl.com on January 11, 2021.