On March 14th I entered into voluntary solo quarantine after discovering I’d been in close proximity with multiple people who might have Covid-19 (the full story about what led up to that moment can be found here).
It might be hard to recall now, but those days were filled with a nearly breathless collective panic. To remind you, here are a few things I scrawled in my journal March 14-17th:
- March 14th: At the grocery store (before I knew I needed to go into quarantine). Many of the cleaning products, dry goods, and frozen food shelves are nearly empty. People are panic buying weeks of food. A clerk told me that the distribution center had stopped returning their calls a few days before. They were supposed to get new supplies but they never came. She thinks the store will be largely cleared out of food tonight if nothing happens.
- March 15th: received a text from a friend. He’d driven past a gun shop. The line had stretched for blocks. He asked if I was prepared if looters attacked my building. Other friends sending videos about preparing for martial law.
- March 16th: the stock market had its single largest drop in history, 12%. My 401k, which is mostly in the stock of my old employer, has nearly halved in value over a few weeks. This afternoon, X (a close friend and hedge fund manager in New York), someone who I’ve long viewed as the model of complete emotional stability, called me out of the blue. He was distraught in a way I’ve never experienced in 15 years. That may have terrified me. I’ve always relied on him to be hyper rational and to calm me down when I get frightened about the direction of society... Tonight, Y called me to tell me Z attempted, and failed, to commit suicide…
- March 17th: W called to tell me she was let go of her job of 18 years without warning. So many friends have lost their jobs this week already.
Throughout those early days, two weeks before our state went into a lockdown, I was locked inside my apartment, unsure whether I was about to get really sick, and afraid that if I went outside I could accidently hurt someone else. I remember often looking out my window and thinking how incomprehensible the whole thing was. Outside the birds were singing as they always did, impervious to our human pandemic. Every morning I was woken up by the sun rising outside my window, and at night as I looked east its fiery reflection lit up the windows of skyscrapers facing west as it had every clear night before.
After a few days of waiting nervously for something, really anything, to happen in my body or on the street below, on March 18th I received another text for CJ. She’d gotten the test results back. She and her family were all positive for Covid-19. I was on the phone with another friend when I got the news. I said I was fine and that it didn’t surprise me. This changed nothing I told her. I was young, healthy, and already quarantined. But within a minute I found my mind completely disengaged from the conversation and I told her I had to go.
Soon thereafter, I lost my appetite, developed excruciating headaches, swollen lymph glands, a sore throat, a mild dry cough, and lungs which felt like they were on fire. Most days, until the late afternoon, I found it hard to breathe deeply. It felt like I had a bag of weights over my chest. I could move them, but only with great effort. I checked my temperature neurotically. But it never got above 98.6. Weirdly, it was typically between 95.5 and 96.9F. I tried to reassure myself that my symptoms were probably either imagined or the result of stress.
Ultimately, since there are still no tests in the US except for patients in the hospital, I don’t know whether I had “it” or not.
~~~
Though the physical symptoms of whatever I had were scary, the psychological impacts of the disease have hit me much harder.
That surprised me. For the last 12+ months, I’ve been without direction except what I make up. I’ve regularly been alone or in the wilderness away from society for extended periods. I didn’t have a job before. I still don’t. I went to countless hours of meditation and yoga workshops. It’s hard to imagine a regime that could have theoretically better prepared me for an extended solo quarantine.
And much of the time, it seemed to work to buoy my spirits. I limited my news consumption. I’ve put my attention on the unique opportunities of the moment. I’ve wrote pages and pages of journal entries about all the things I feel grateful for.
And yet, on other days, I’ve felt beaten down, and angry for feeling that way. After all, I scolded myself, you have so much to be thankful for and are in a better position than so many others!
When this first began to happen, my discomfort manifested as a generalized sense of fear.
I’ve learned a lot about fear this year, and I tried to apply my learnings and energy to overcome it.
Firstly, I’ve learned that when I get frightened by one specific thing (a drugged-out man approaching my car, a bear in the wild, a hard conversation with someone angry at me), I can tip from a state of general confidence, to general fear. Suddenly, everything around me and every interaction seems like something that could lead to loss.
While shut in, I tried to apply this learning by reminding myself not to take rash actions, that I’d had this kind of reaction before, and that I probably wasn’t in nearly as much danger as I thought. Then, rather than fighting all the fears at once, I focused on examining each one. And indeed, one by one, I saw my fears were greater than the actual immediate danger I faced.
After doing the work of speaking to and examining my fears (rather than reacting to them) I felt much better… sometimes… and for a few hours, or perhaps a whole day, even as my body was still weak, I’d feel great – full of gratitude, optimistic about the future, and focused on helping others (even if only digitally).
But… then for no particular reason, at some seemingly random moment, I’d feel myself fall to pieces again. I couldn’t understand why, and it made so me angry at myself for being so weak.
Which brings me to my second learning about fear – sometimes when I enter into a consuming state of depression and generalized fear – it’s a sign that something deeper is happening. Yes, my fears are real, but they can also simultaneously be a self-generated smoke screen protecting me from having to face deeper feelings.
In retrospect, it’s interesting in re-reading my journals from those first days in quarantine. On the one hand, I did so many of the “yoga” and “mindfulness” things I learned this year to manage periods of tumult and anxiety. I cut out negative stimuli from my life. I put my attention on my gratitudes and opportunities. I had tons and tons of phone calls with friends. I even started a mediation group, in which I led meditations for friends and strangers alike. When I went to bed I turned on positive podcasts and audio books which I fell asleep to.
I also notice what I wasn’t doing. Even though I was locked at home alone, I wasn’t meditating myself. I wasn’t reflecting deeply in my journaling; mostly I was capturing the “facts.” I wasn’t saying no when friends wanted to talk. In sum, I wasn’t creating any space for silence or stillness.
~~~
Perhaps that surprises you? After all, I’ve written a lot about stillness and my desire for it in this blog.
In one post this summer, I wrote about my first extended wilderness backpack. Midway through, my guide told how she views consciousness as a ship crossing a lake. Most of the time winds and currents are whipping up the surface. We think we only have enough energy to fight to stay afloat. When we look out at the violent sea, and mistakenly believe that all water is waves.
In the wilderness, something strange happened. Cut off from the external stimuli of the normal world, and forced to sit with my thoughts without distraction for days on end, it at first felt as though the storm has become a hurricane. And yet, in time, I found the winds lost their hold and suddenly the surface became still. I realized not only just how much energy I was spending just to stay afloat, but that I had made most of the winds! Then, looking down at the still surface of the water, I saw into the deeps, and discovered I floating on a thing far vaster and more beautiful than I ever imagined when I was only fighting the waves.
In that moment, the metaphor and experience, filled me so much joy and hope. I vowed to carry the wilderness inside me and return to still waters of my mind whenever I found myself feeling like I’d entered a storm not of my own creating.
And yet, despite this experience just months ago, faced with new category 5 hurricane outside, is this what I did? No, not at all, I tried to fight the storm with every weapon in my arsenal. Until I gave out – not out of wisdom, but exhaustion.
I reached that point a week after my physical symptoms began to subside. I was feeling okay that day, but I was tired of being cooped up. So, I decided what I needed was fresh air. Thankfully, I live in a pretty quiet neighborhood, and in the middle of the day I thought I could go for a walk without risking coming into contact with anyone.
My walk was going fine until I saw someone else coming toward me. As I saw him look at me, I froze. I thought I saw fear in his eyes. Without waiting for him to react further, I scurried to other side of the street, cast my eyes down, and hurried home.
Even though I never got within 50 feet of him, I wondered, was I careful enough? What if he ended up getting sick and died? Why was I so selfish? Did I really need to be outside? When would this ever end? A vaccine is 2 years away, maybe. In the meantime, I’m unemployed, unsure of my future, and have failed so many people these last few years. Honestly, what value am I even providing to society? Holed up in my apartment, I’m adding nothing to anyone. I’m just consuming resources, and anytime I go out, I’m risking the safety of others. That man had seen the truth – in my blood and breath I carry brokenness and a certainty of suffering for anyone who gets too close.
I knew these thoughts were melodramatic. I felt like a drama queen, and yet in deeper sense as I looked at them, they felt both absurd and also true.
When I got back home, I curled up on my couch. I was supposed to have a zoom call that afternoon with a group of friends. Then, I did something I never do. I bailed. At first I said nothing. Then, 15 minutes later, I sent a text saying, “sorry… something came up.” I rolled back onto my side, and began to scroll through my social media feeds. Then, I stopped even doing that.
~~~
Shame. Regret. Fear. Despair. How could a simple, innocent glance from a stranger trigger so much and send me spiraling?
I imagine many of you may have experienced similar moments the last few weeks. Perhaps you feel fine, having found a new groove despite it all, and then suddenly, you are brought to your knees and you find yourself face-to-face with your oldest insecurities and regrets.
In that moment, I saw I had so many unhealed wounds, and I despaired. I had no energy to constructively journal. I didn’t want to talk with friends. I just sank deeper and deeper in self-loathing.
But then something strange happened. The longer I sat in stillness, I found that it wasn’t shame and despair which were at the bottom of the lake. There were feelings deeper still.
At first it was anger. I felt angry I was locked inside. I felt anger that it seemed like our politicians have no idea what they are doing. I felt angry this could go on for years. I felt fury at the people who I wronged and misunderstood me in 2017 and 2018 prior to me going on my travels. I felt rage at myself, for the stupidity of many of the choices I’ve made during my life.
My anger burned through me, literally consuming me in the silence, until I felt like I’d been transformed to mere ash. Then I found exhaustion. I had no more energy to curse politicians, the people who hurt me, or even myself. I had no energy to fight my fears, to support others, to transform my negative feelings into purpose, or even to censor myself for feeling bad for feeling bad because of all the privilege I enjoy.
Then, completely spent, I began to feel the pull of sadness. I wanted to cry, and I couldn’t understand why. In the stillness of that afternoon I felt wave after wave of sadness that I was too tired to resist. I felt sadness for my failed marriage, for my part in it, and all the love that was so good but which is now forever lost. I felt sadness for all the sacrifices I made to pursue a job I knew I never should never have taken, and which didn’t turn out. I felt sadness for so many of my friends now in such distress, and who I knew I couldn’t help. I felt sadness for the plans I’d painstakingly made, but which in a week had now become impossible to live out.
When I had no more tears to cry, I found stillness. By this, I don’t mean I found happiness or healing. I still felt a general sense of melancholy. My wounds were still there. But the vibrating anxiety and need to do SOMETHING that had been ever present since the quarantine started had gone away.
And as I looked out at myself with my brokenness, and out at the sick world with its indefinite lockdowns stretching into the seeming infinity, I realized all my fighting was getting me nowhere. No, I wasn’t giving up. On the contrary, I felt a new sense of resolve to turn my attention away from the mountains I couldn’t climb and the people I couldn’t save, and instead toward the healing myself.
And in that moment, I saw too that I needed to start not with action, but surrender. I needed to give myself permission in the midst of the storm to sit in stillness, to not be okay, to not know what to do, and to not try to immediately fix it. I needed to let myself be with myself as I am, not as I want to be, and find acceptance even there.
Since then… well, to be honest, it’s been a work in progress. And I’m trying to be kind to myself about that too.
~~~
Whoever you are, and wherever you find yourself today – alone in your apartment, a month since you’ve touched anyone, or living with many others – know that you are not alone. In this time of global pandemic, we are all connected. We are all transforming. We are all fighting great battles: some shared, some deeply personal.
And when you are struggling, and when you lose heart, I hope you remember it’s not only okay, but important, to give yourself permission to not be okay.