We Should All Cry More.
I turned 24 today. And I cried twice.
I’ve been living at my parents’ house since mid-March, when physical distancing measures were beginning to be recommended in New York City. I was right in the middle of my last semester of graduate school at Columbia University.
I went home for spring break.
And I just stayed there.
Since mid-March, I’ve been with my two parents, my two younger siblings (one also in university), and my grandmother, who moved in with us temporarily. My grandmother has been staying in my childhood bedroom and I’ve taken the guest room so she won’t have to climb the stairs.
My choice to do that was clear, and also not really a choice. But my family is immensely privileged and lucky, and I took it like a champ and just went with it. We are especially lucky that we can all be together.
Since I got back home, I’ve produced three videos for my documentary class, received the coronavirus antibody test (negative), finished classes, celebrated my grandma’s birthday and Mother’s Day, cooked a little, and baked a lot.
My friends who were isolating alone or in small New York apartments were the first to feel the emotional effects of the lockdown.
This makes sense.
They were especially lonely and cramped and stressed.
Meanwhile, I’ve been home in Florida, in a house with a warm and loving family, a wonderful dog, outdoor space, and lots of sunshine. Not much to complain about! Sure, I missed my friends, classes went online, and I wasn’t going to graduate in person. I also worried about my grandmother’s and my dad’s health; he works in a hospital.
But I am basically in the ideal situation. Logic told me there was nothing to worry about.
So when I burst into tears today because we ran out of powdered sugar (!) for the cake decorations I wanted to make, I felt so angry at myself. Who am I to cry? There are so many worse things that could be happening.
A few minutes later, I realized what it was.
It wasn’t just that we didn’t have sugar (which my sister then ran to the store to purchase, after I had been running errands all morning).
It was a catharsis of all the complex thoughts and feelings I’d had since everything began.
First, the feeling that “everything” was going wrong on my birthday (it wasn’t). But also that my friends wouldn’t be here to celebrate, that I had really missed the last semester of journalism school and my classmates and I would never be in the same place again, that I would never get a job because even the most talented journalists are being laid off and looking for any work, that no one would ever want to read my writing (including my humor work), and that I would be stuck here forever.
Despite the fact that these thoughts were pretty much always at the front of my brain from chatting with J-school classmates and friends, I hadn’t had that physical release since America shut down.
And as it turns out, I needed that release really badly.
Since about 2013, I’ve been taking an anti-depressant that makes it hard for me to cry.
Obviously when I was depressed and crying multiple times a day, it was really difficult to function. So the medication helped me in that sense, and also improved my mood somewhat, as did attending therapy and having a lot of familial support.
But the past two months have been the most stress-inducing probably anyone I know has ever experienced. Last week alone, I found five gray hairs. (The week before, three.)
If there’s any time to cry, it’s now.
Just before my Zoom birthday party, I got a text from my best friend telling me that a delivery for me had arrived. It was a box of French macarons (yes it’s basic, but it’s an inside thing and I love them!) with the names of four of my best friends on the box.
I sobbed again. And it felt great.
