How We Live Now

I start this by sharing something I wrote for myself at the beginning of 2020 (March 23^rd to be exact) never giving it a second thought that it would see the light of day, but here goes…

Right. Where do I begin?

In the midst of this global pandemic, it’s hard to be believe that the year is only three months in, because to me, it feels like we’ve been here forever. With new cases popping up every day – no scratch that; every hour – it seems quite surreal. And yet at the same time, it seems like just yesterday we were all saying good riddance 2019 (you can kick buckets) here’s to 2020 – bring it on! Now I think it’s safe to say that I wouldn’t mind a 2019 do-over.

How the hell did we get here?

That’s a rhetorical question by the way – because we know exactly how we got here (my conspiracy tin hat is tingling with ideas) but I’ll leave that for another day…

The fact of the matter is, it boils down to one thing. Humans. Yes, us. We can’t quite seem to stop meddling in things we have no need to, can we? We’ve watched all the shows, movies and cartoons that predicted something like this was bound to happen – it was only a matter of time. (Although I must admit, I didn’t see the turn of a new decade going south this fast) but alas, here we are. Still waking up every day to what seems like the biggest production yet, featuring real lives, real people and real deaths. Not something we can pause or fast forward, or better yet, rewind.

It’s like living in your own version of a television box, but that box is the four walls you call home and that fictional character is quite real… It’s you.

You can’t escape it and you can’t change it – the role has already been written and you have to play the part. You look around and the people you see running to the supermarkets buying up all the hand sanitizers, food and doomsday toilet paper are your supporting cast (not to mention the little shits that are spring breaking and can't stay their asses home!) You just have to keep going because the director hasn’t yelled “cut!” and the question that keeps ringing over and over again on everyone’s mind isn’t “how did that scene turn out?” but “when the fuck will this shit show be over?”.

Countless news outlets and social media platforms are flooded with a seemingly never-ending stream of a word that used to only be associated with after work drinks at happy hour or a cold beach day beverage with a slice of lime… With infections and death tolls rising as fast as you count!

City lockdowns, self-isolations, quarantines, these are the new norms – not some Sci-Fi/Drama we remember watching starring Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow back in the day. This is real life. Our lives.

#CoronaVirus #Covid19 #GlobalHealthCrisis

 That is how we live now.

Fast forward to here and now – 2021. The subject at hand is this article I came across (you) “Here’s your chance to tell us how 2020 has affected you and share it with the world! In 1500 – 4000 words” ... But how can I? The truth is, I don’t know – yet I feel as if I can taste word vomit which threatens to suffocate me… So close to the surface that I have to close my eyes and will it back down before it overwhelms my senses.

2020 is a year that feels too grand to type into a small web competition email submission, too surreal… It’s raw. It’s fresh. It cuts deep. Years from now will any of us remember the panic, the chaos, the train wreck of events that seemed to never end? I doubt it. In time everything fades, even the surge of a global pandemic, replacing those memories with new ones… New health crises, natural disasters, economic crashes – ultimately taking us further and further away from the year which started a new decade, a new norm and inevitably, a new way of life.

Looking back, I can barely differentiate how each month started to how it ended. Time as we knew it seemed to warp into one perpetual loop, taking us along for the ride whether we liked it or not. Eventually, that whirlwind stood still and the planet seemed to be holding its breath. We stepped into this new reality of not being able to socialize with friends or family, where a normal trip to the movies was something of a distant memory – no more waiting in long lines to order your popcorn or hotdog, no more climbing up those narrow theatre steps, looking around trying to find the perfect place to sit and telling the person in front of you to be quiet when they got a bit too loud. In afterthought, all those little annoying instances don’t seem as bad as they did in the moment – but that’s the thing about retrospective vision right? The mountains seem to turn into molehills.

The past year has shown humanity’s true colours in many ways – ranging from how nations and major corporations handled the initial warnings and protocols, to people simply being downright nasty to each other! Many thought life could continue as it was without facing the repercussions of their carless decisions, but were soon faced with the harsh reality of this virus. Overnight the concerts got cancelled, the award shows and board meetings became virtual, and that episode of ‘Black Mirror’ where everyone spoke to each other and lived their lives through their devices didn’t seem that farfetched anymore. Covid19 didn’t discriminate and it didn’t care if you were black or white, it didn’t care if you were from the upper, middle or lower class of society – it came for everyone. Everywhere.

With no signs of slowing down and no cure in sight, this virus wasn’t the only thing that was rearing its ugly head, but there was something else close on its heels… Injustice. That word no one ever seems to want to face – and with the help of social media, it brought it into all of our homes. Watching the police brutality and shootings happening in America was like watching a plane crash in slow motion. It unleashed something in Black Americans that was bubbling close to the surface for many years which erupted like Mount Vesuvius right before our eyes. The result was cataclysmic and echoed throughout the globe, causing a ripple effect like never before – at least not in my generation.

Marches ensued and people took to the streets in numbers we hadn’t seen since the civil rights movement in the 60s – all of a sudden BLM took on a whole new energy. The people had had enough and demanded change! The wave reverberated as if crashing on jagged rocks, spreading across countries all over the world – from England to Australia, people marched as if it was their necks being crushed by a knee, as if it were their loved one being snuffed out for the world to see. For 8 minutes and 46 seconds we seemed to be transfixed to the screen watching the life slip from this man that none of us knew but at the same time, felt a connection to. Say his name: George Floyd!

The pain was vast, the hurt was deep. Peaceful protests ended up in bloody battles and the streets went up in smoke… This wasn’t some blockbuster movie we were watching, this was real life, in real time – no outtakes in sight. This was 2020. How could all this be happening at once? It didn’t seem fair. It felt as if the world was spiraling out of control and as a result our island, our safe haven in paradise, got hit hard. Our land of sea and beauty felt like a ghost town. First it was the ships, then the planes stopped coming and the airport eventually closed, leaving the tarmac deserted and hundreds without a job or income – no tourists equals economic disaster. Panic set in and fear threatened to choke us all… The future seemed suffocating. How will we survive this? That was the question on everyone’s minds, but the answer was nowhere to be found…

Think fast, think smart. Ah yes, we’ve got it! Let’s go back to basics, let’s go back to Mother Nature! Let’s go back to the ways of our grandparents and their parents before them. That’s it – self-sustainability. The environment was and always will be our greatest friend, but we took her for granted. The fast pace of a time before this horrific pandemic was all we knew, now we’ve found ourselves staring face to face with the harsh truth of reality – to survive we must fend for ourselves. So we went back to the beginning and into our backyards for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. We sunk our hands into the soil and felt the fresh earth slipping through our fingers. We reconnected with the earth and what it meant to be one with nature. We hiked more, went outdoors more. We woke up and literally smelt the roses, and it was life changing! We had rekindled the extinguished embers between us and our life source.

We learned to adapt yet again to a new way of living – to grow our own food, to go green, to love on our environment and surroundings and in turn, love on each other. We found out that when faced with a crisis unlike any we could’ve imagined, we turned out to be more resilient than we pictured ourselves capable of. We found our strength.

Will this be the end though? On the contrary, this is unfortunately only the beginning – but we must keep our heads held high and continue the journey on this unchartered road ahead…

 

Remember, nothing worth fighting for ever comes easy – so let’s fight, because our lives depend on it!