Personal Memoir and Reflections During Covid
During the pandemic, I lost myself, in a way. My ever-changing self-esteem was completely dependent on my memory of what a normal human face seemed like; I was beginning to forget what to expect when I looked into the mirror- what was too big, too small, misshapen. My judgement on my appearance relentlessly alternated from extreme highs to extreme lows from what I thought was ‘normal’ that day. I was so deprived from observing and admiring another person that my perception of myself changed on a daily basis – it was entirely based of sparse fragments of human faces that I haphazardly pieced together, almost like a lucid dream that was hard to differentiate from reality, something that I didn’t even trust myself to believe. Looking in the mirror and watching my attributes change was a lonely, tantalizing reminder that even childish, embarrassing connections such as a simple third-grade crush can subconsciously give you something to reflect on; admiring someone in these moments makes you look for qualities in yourself. I felt almost weak for not managing, watching my classmates thrive and be completely immune to the isolation and loneliness that I thought was a unique experience. Moreover, I noticed how desperate I was to escape my body. I took a particular interest in space, even though deep down I had no interest whatsoever in any kind of sciences - I thought the subject was mundane; that science was full of ideas that had already been done and as a result there was no need to theorize and articulate the thoughts that someone else had already thought word-for-word. Although I had to bury this layer of meaninglessness that I suppressed, I found great comfort in realizing that this life meant nothing, this burden of isolation was a drop of water in the ocean – it did not matter amongst something much bigger - the galaxies and nebulas and black holes and whatever else I learned about. As I type this out, I find it difficult to admit the insignificance of the ideas and concepts that entirely defined me in my earlier years. An epitome of my escapist fantasies was being 90 years old sitting in a rocking chair – each motion of the chair akin to a second closer to the imminent passing of my existence; the depressing part was that I envisioned myself completely alone and having achieved nothing in my life. Although it is hard to look past the loneliness and internal turmoil, the pandemic forced me to make deeper connections. I did not have many friends, and I spent all my time with this one girl, just to watch her childish spirit wither in front of me as we were forced to grow up and become self-sufficient at such an early age. Watching her lose herself and never recover her trust in society during the pandemic almost hurt as much as losing myself; there are so many more ways to describe her than a core memory.
