This time last year my hands had worn raw. Fingers crusted and dry, seams cracked from frequent spritzes of Dr. Bronner's hand sanitizer — the only bottle we could find — which needled sharp pains into my hands countless times per day.
At that point, I was still (nervously) riding the subway and entering stores unmasked because experts told us not to mask-up. If I meticulously and regularly sanitized my hands, I believed at the time, then I was doing what I could to stop myself from getting the coronavirus. It literally hurt to make myself feel safe — how could I do this indefinitely? If you told me I'd be doing it a year, at minimum, I would've imagined my hands as tenderized meat.
Yet here I am, still sanitizing like mad — side note: I understand there are more effective COVID-prevention tools, but it helps and makes me feel better — and my hands are...fine.
A year later and my hands are different. They're no longer cracked, or dry, and the constant alcohol cleansing isn't painful. Somehow, my fingers have grown to understand sanitizer and an uneasy peace settled into my nervous little routine.
It's like a scar, what feels like a permanent change to my body. But if you look at my hand, there are new non-metaphorical scars, too. Some months back, my knife slipped while slicing green onions. Instead of scallion, the blade caught my thumb and index finger in one swoop — it sliced deep — but I wasn't about to go to the emergency room. Not during COVID.
Eventually my separated skin grew back together, but it was all wonky. My new fingertips had little, imperfect lumps where stitches probably should've been.
Scars. This pandemic has left so many scars. And yes, they can be literal, but more likely than not, they're emotional, mental, weighty but formless.
It's been a year now. Well, more, really. But in the U.S. things got holy shit real on March 11, 2020. It was the day the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic. And on that very day, Tom Hanks announced he had COVID, the NBA shut down, and the stock market plunged. It finally hit home.
When the COVID crisis began, we imagined the ways it would change us. How would it mark us like the Great Depression did to so many — will we have our versions of that penny pinching?
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It's hard to know too much right now. Things are improving, but we're still in this crisis.
There are the things we can't avoid: my hands, for instance. But there are so many other parts of this pandemic I cannot imagine shaking. I'll move on, sure, but how could I ever truly release them?
I lost two family members in the last year. One to COVID, another suddenly, unrelated to the pandemic but during it.
I've cried over these losses. I've spoken with family and experts, trawled through memories, and imagined my world without these family members. But my world is already so small, so much of my life is imagined. Several times per day I think here's what I'll do when it's all over. Visiting loved ones is already something I have to imagine, which has made very real, permanent losses to my family feel less...real and permanent.
My life is confined to a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn plus what's within walking distance. My world was already without family, for the most part.
The mourning feels empty and odd. I couldn't travel home. We couldn't have funerals. I couldn't hug my mom.
The mourning feels empty and odd. I couldn't travel home. We couldn't have funerals. I couldn't hug my mom.
I know my family members are gone. But there's something to processing grief via ritual. It's strange to experience important events without our normal markers. I'm not saying I'd fully process the losses with awkward, teary greetings of acquaintances, trays of antipasto, and stories from old friends. I am saying it would be a start.
Where does that absence go, moving forward? As needles hit arms and the world re-opens and I see my surviving family, what do we make of the things that weren't? Or do they just stay? Does that absence fade?
So many days feel like you power through them. So much sadness and grief gets pushed aside. When, if ever, will we sit in it?
A year into this thing, there must be countless invisible scars for people out there.
There are the things we couldn't do. I was scheduled to get married in September 2020, for instance, but the plague pushed our date back at least a year.
And there are the things we started doing. Will I ever not wash my hands after coming home? Will I hear a cough and not cringe? Will the constant, low-level anxiety ever recess?
I used to ride the subway, grabbing grimy, constantly touched poles, meet a friend for dinner and down a sandwich — all without washing my hands.
A year ago, perhaps foolishly, I would've expected things to be different by now, in good and bad ways. I would've thought we'd have things far more under control because finally, eventually, everyone agreed to really lockdown. But I also wouldn't believe we had numerous miracle-level-good vaccines and were inoculating some 2 million Americans per day.
The pandemic hasn't just changed the world, it has become the world. Its tentacles touch everything. I don't dream like I used to. Literally. Many nights I have nightmares where I accidentally enter public spaces unmasked, only to realize Oh God, oh no, it's still a pandemic. I'll have dreams of sick loved ones and unshakeable danger.
My metaphorical dreams have changed, too. In some ways they're bigger: I want to travel everywhere, do more, work less, visit my friends spread across the country. But my dreams have shrunk as well. Who needs to write a book, or get recognition? I'd love a dinner with family, a fine life with friends who love me, a cool beer at a dank bar.
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It feels shameful to admit, but at some point in my life, I dreamt of doing something — or feeling — special. Having something in my life be singular, one of one. There's a part of me that still wants that. But now I more often daydream of being a part of something bigger, of being in the presence of community. It doesn't matter how. A head-banging rock show or a small dinner party, I want it all. It won't feel normal at first, but I want it nonetheless.
In that way, post-COVID feels impossible. Even if it fades and infections inch closer to zero — or to some indeterminate, acceptable level — it's too big, it changed too much. We've lost too much, too many. So much gone. Days, weddings, parties, long nights at bars, quiet afternoons in libraries, dark movie theaters, hugs, jobs, loved ones.
It'll be there. Even if COVID is mostly gone, the scars of the absences it created will remain. But we can pray they fade.
My family is hoping that one day we'll have a big celebration for the family and friends of our departed loved ones. There will be booze and dancing and, I imagine, trays of antipasto. It won't be a funeral. But it will be a ritual.
We'll cry and laugh, hug and shake hands with strangers. I might not even sanitize after shaking. But when I look down, the little bumps on my fingers — the scars where my body grew back all wrong — will remain.
