Reflections From a Life in Quarantine : Day 229

My 2020 began just like any other year. I was hopeful for the things to come. I had friends’ weddings that I was looking forward to witnessing, and flights whose schedules I was impatiently waiting for to come along. Little did I know that 2020 was about to sneakily go behind my back and surprise me a with a year unlike any other.

It’s been 7 months and 15 days since I lost the luxury of being able to go out and just aimlessly roam around without worrying if I had a trusty face mask on and a bottle of rubbing alcohol that I would be sanitizing my hands with every 10 minutes. It’s been 7 months and 15 days since greetings have turned from warm hugs to elbow bumps and socially distanced waves. It feels like a lifetime ago since I unknowingly dove into a crash course on Germophobia 101.

I do have to admit though that life in quarantine hasn’t been all that bad. I haven’t had as much time for (and with) myself in years. My love-hate relationship with my daily morning alarm has been indefinitely put on hold. I have been reminded of how therapeutic time spent in the kitchen can be. My little library that was starting to accumulate dust is now one of the most visited parts of my room. I have also learned to appreciate the beauty and stillness of these 3 Italian words that I have only encountered in fine print before, Dolce far niente — the sweetness of doing nothing.

It may not all be coming up roses, but I choose to end 2020 with the same feelings I had as I rang in the new year — hopeful. Better days are ahead. It’s always darkest before the dawn. May we all continue to power through the rest of this pandemic and come out stronger, wiser, and kinder. As the great Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”