Covid: Year Two: Friendship

It has been fifty-seven weeks since Ontario shut down for the first time, when the only stores open were grocery stores and gas stations and pharmacies and the LCBO, when people skittered in and out of those stores like they were fugitives, when you couldn't get yeast or flour for love or money. It's been 411 days since the last March Break started, since we got the news that Noah wouldn't be returning to preschool, that someone would be in touch for us to come and pick up his shoes and whatever art projects he had made. It's been nearly as long since my husband took a mid-week train to Stratford, because his office was shutting down and it made sense for him to come here so he could be out of his parent's basement and seeing his kid and his wife every day; since we began fretting in earnest about his parents and their health, my grandmother and hers.

I am tired, friends. I am so tired of my kid and my husband. I know it's not nice to say, but it doesn't come from any mean-spiritedness on my part. They are the peanut butter-and-jam sandwich I've eaten every day for 411 days. They are lovely people, and I want to go check myself into a hotel for a week to be away from them. I want to be with my friends—the moms from the drop-in circles and the ones I DM with on Instagram, the people I'd see twice a year at house parties, the friends-of-friends I'm always delighted to see on the street. I want to get to know my friend's girlfriend better, or grab a casual coffee with the yoga teacher who seems nice, or get reconnected with my high school friend who lives down the street.

I'm tired of every minuscule social interaction being fraught, weighing what I see on social media (are they partying or a hermit? have they posted that vaccine selfie?) with my own activities (have I lingered when I ran into a friend at the drugstore? did my son bring home some horrible germ? are these really allergies?). I'm tired of trying to convince myself that I'm satisfied with seedlings and online shopping, as if I don't desperately want to give my parents a hug. I feel lucky in that socialized health care will mean I will not be bankrupted if I happen to get sick, but it also means that the vaccine rollout in our area has been slow as molasses. 

I am TIRED of Doug Ford and his futile promises that this lockdown will be different, somehow—despite the fact that the hardest-hit areas have been locked down continuously since October—and he is owed back-irritation for defunding public health and canceling paid sick days. I am also tired of the young men and women in my life who are spewing misinformation about vaccines, masks, doctors, COVID treatments and COVID itself. The 30-whatever-year-old men whose biggest annoyance in the last year is that they can't watch a ballgame from a stadium seat, they have to wear a mask when they go to the LCBO, and they can't complete the dating-app casual-sex circuit on a bored Saturday afternoon.

And I not ungrateful for our admittedly non-harrowing experiences throughout—we've been in a safe little city, with less than 400 cases since March 2020, and many of those in congregate living spaces like long-term care facilities, where even the most diligent approach isn't a guarantee against sickness. Our big house meant that my sister could be here with us for nearly a year, another adult to bounce off of (and feel feelings about); it meant that there are nooks to escape to, whole rooms we can dedicate to exercise, kid-play, or seedlings. We are able to go grocery shopping, to attend doctor's appointments, to have ultrasounds, and buy skateboards. We are able to get our mail, have running water, and eat food. We want for nothing.

Except: pandemic life is a grind. It's a grind! When is the last time you felt joy? Just a streak of pure delight, shocking your nervous system with unexpected beauty or pleasure? When is the last time you felt connected to someone outside your house? An intimate moment—a hand on their shoulder, a confession told with heads together, easy laughter? When is the last time you felt peaceful, the jangle of your pandemic-addled nervous system quieted down enough to feel the hum of the natural world, the beat of your own heart? And not in a "are these heart palpitations or is this The Big One" kind of way, either. 

Adult discourse tends to view friends as some kind of vestigial university phenomenon—adults have colleagues and in-laws, not friends. (An aside: the fact that queer folks often say "chosen families"  to mean "my group of best friends who love and support me but who are not blood-kin" tells me what I need to know about the relative status of family and friendship.) However, I will freely admit that I miss giggling like a lunatic with my high school bestie while we drink wine in the driveway, and brunch with The Girls, and the coffee shop outing with a new friend, and a trip to the library with a mom-friend. Not having access to those varieties of friends, and those different spaces, makes life tougher. When the daily circuit is home office-kitchen-bedroom/husband-kid, there's very little room to be surprised by joy.

It feel almost absurd to be advocating for these nice-to-have things at the tail end of an unprecedented year, but fuck it, I'm selfish. I don't want a ballgame or a casual hookup; I don't even want freedom from the "tyranny" of masks or vaccines (what luxury, that this is our so-called tyranny). But what I do want, so much, is to feel like my soul-self is growing and not withering; to feel like the reason I'm keeping my house clean is because maybe someone will come visit one day; to feel like I can commit myself to creative projects because I will have the time (read: school coverage) to actually do them. The birth-to-kindergarten sprint was only really tolerable because I knew, at some point, I would be able to claw back some of the parts of myself that I'd put on ice, the parts that weren't paying the bills or keeping that little human alive.

And then along came 2020.

I read a tweet recently that said "It's wonderful that everyone expects non-stop risk-embracing celebration this summer, but it's slightly more likely people will have two glasses of wine and start sobbing for no reason, then leave the party and walk to the nearest body of water to sit on a bench and watch boats," and friends, I feel seen by this.  It's not so much that I have a specific grief that I can point to (a job loss, a death, a shitty diagnosis, an eviction), but navigating a world where public health has thrown a handful of marbles on the floor has left me feeling like I need to hang onto the walls for a while; it's too bad that the usual walls we reach for —friendship, nature, creativity, time off, time away—are all firmly off-limits. See you at the other end of the hallway. I'll reach out my hand when it's safe.