A few weeks ago, I started drafting a new blog post: “Something Good.” (That title/topic doesn’t seem so appropriate now.) After months of searching then weeks of applying and interviewing, I was hired for a remote, full-time copy editing job.
It wasn’t a dream job in terms of the work, but the logistics were perfect. I worked from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with an hour for lunch – never more, sometimes less. The work challenged me, but it was straightforward and the job wasn’t stressful. I got to spend the entire day at home in my pajamas. And I was paid extremely well, with shockingly good benefits.
After months of depression, unemployment, loneliness, financial stress, and anxiety, the job felt too good to be true. How did I deserve this? I mentioned to my parents, and even wrote in my semi-complete earlier draft, that I was just trying to enjoy each day on the job, because how long could something that good last?
Eleven days, as it turns out.
On Monday morning, the beginning of the third week at my new job, two of my supervisors called to break the news. Like so many other companies across the world, a domino effect caused by COVID-19 meant my start-up company had no choice but to lay off a chunk of its employees to survive.
I’m not happy about it, but I’m not angry. I understand why businesses need to make these difficult decisions. It is horrifying to think how many others have been laid off, but I suppose there is the tiniest amount of comfort in knowing I’m not the only one.
Yet, I cannot remember the last time I acutely felt so much grief, despair, and fear. The kind of negative emotions that live in my muscles, twist in my stomach, and keep me up at night. I don’t usually feel emotions. That sounds like a flippant joke but, if anything, sometimes I get a flicker of happiness or sadness. Surface-level. Emotions pass through my mind, not my heart or my body or my gut or my soul or anywhere you really feel them.
Between the current global health crisis and losing my job, something was knocked loose inside of me.
This is a terrifying moment in time. It’s not just a bad thing that happened to me, or a bad thing happening to my loved ones. It’s not a war, disaster, or epidemic that sounds horrifying but is so remote (either geographically or historically) I can’t fully comprehend it. COVID-19 is personal, local, and global. It affects me, it affects my family several states away, and it affects strangers on the opposite side of the world. And it is deadly and devastating. It’s hard to wrap my head around this reality, but as it sinks in more and more each day, my terror and distress grow.
As someone who is immunocompromised, I have been self-isolating in my apartment for about two weeks now, only going outside to walk my dog. I’m on two immunosuppressants for my autoimmune diseases: Cimzia, a biologic, and Imuran, a medication often used after transplants to prevent organ rejection. The common cold can take me down for weeks; I got sick in January and am still congested more than two months later. I don’t know that my body could fight COVID-19. Young, healthy people have died. If I caught it, my chances wouldn’t be good, and that scares the hell out of me.
Then there are my parents, who are older. My mom has asthma. My dad has various health complications. They have been surprisingly good about the lockdown, but I still worry.
My sister, on the other hand, doesn’t seem that concerned, which frightens me considering she has a 1-year-old baby. She’s Gen Z. We’re two and a half years apart in age but worlds apart in understanding.
Beyond immediate health and safety, there are so many other unknowns and potential ramifications that I worry about. What does everyone who has been laid off do? How do people pay rent or bills? How do people buy food? Literally – how are we supposed to buy food right now? I am not going to the grocery store, especially being immunocompromised, and every time I check any of the grocery stores in my area, there are precisely zero availabilities for pick-up or delivery.
It’s all a nightmare. Who knows how long this will last, or how many lives will be lost.
Please: practice social distancing, wash your hands, and take this seriously. I’ve been in isolation, more or less, since September and maybe you go a little crazy, but you take a nap, watch some TV, read a book, and you survive. But if you go out, others may not.
