Tiny Little Things
At the beginning of the semester, I wrote about the challenges of online school, how hard it can be and how tiring it is to sit at a computer all day. With those challenges we face in online school come the challenges we feel in everyday, COVID-19 life.
Never mind school, it’s hard to stay motivated in every other aspect of life. The tiny little things I loved to do in my free time now feel like chores and drain every last bit of whatever energy I had left. After I shut my laptop and clock out of work, all I can manage to do is one aimless task after another. Scrolling through my phone, staring at the ceiling, it’s all the same.
But what was it like before all of this happened? I’m afraid I’m starting to forget what “normal” life feels like, or felt like. In what I can now say felt like a utopia, I was an avid reader. I devoured books like they were meals, their words sweet like candy. I was a runner. I could pound seven miles without taking a breather, without thinking twice about it. I just went and I didn’t stop.
I traveled here, there, and everywhere. The pause of that is for the better, of course, but it still hurts all the same. I was full of hope and wonder, but I think we all were. All of those tiny little things are on pause, and I am itching and clawing my way through to hit resume.
I do feel some sense of hope, though. We just elected a new administration in a historic presidential election. An administration that believes in science (and all of the other things an administration should believe in). An administration that takes facts for what they are and doesn’t manipulate them for a narrative they don’t fit. That may seem small, but the tiniest things can have the largest impact as we’ve learned. Especially after a year like this one.
But alas, life goes on. It changes, and we change with it. We will hit resume again one day soon, and perhaps we’ll all be better then, because we’ll get back to our tiny, little things.
