finding my home in a pandemic

I started writing this post from my bed where I slept on and off for 18 straight hours about a month ago. I had the privilege of receiving the second dose of my Covid-19 vaccine in March, and few words have the ability to summarize my feelings. What first comes to mind is the largest understatement of my life:

This has been a long year.

About one year ago, my life was flipped upside down (along with the lives of everyone else and with the world as we knew it). Not even 8 months into working at BHCHP, the covid-19 pandemic inserted itself into every corner of my mind, and my life and job as I was just getting to know them were transformed in every way. My 7:30a-4p clinic schedule became 7p-7a some days, 7a-7p other days, and 3–7p here and 12–8p there. My sleep was during the day, during the night, during the lonely (and shockingly fast) bus rides to work when everyone else was too afraid to enter MBTA territory. My personal phone calls were done on my hour long walk to work, and my morning coffee was becoming a 6pm trip to Dunkin. Truly, every detail of my adult life jumbled at rapid speed.

I was scared, yes. But, more than that, I was tired and distracted. Too tired and too distracted to think about what was happening to me. Most people retreated to their zoom communities, facing their unique challenges of isolation and virtual life. I numbly, and without hesitation, charged closer to the virus, digging deeper into my commitment to my community while distancing myself further from others. 80% of what I was doing was an obligation to my work and my peers. There was a lack of questioning and an absence of existential thought that marked this period. 20% of what I was doing was out of an unnamed excitement to be a part of something greater, to stand with the most vulnerable at a time of shocking uncertainty.

For the rest of 2020, I had to put aside my vision of professional and personal growth in order to make room for the day-to-day changes caused by covid19. Today I will work in the quarantine tents, caring for unhoused folks with pending test results. Tomorrow I will work at a field hospital for covid19 patients. The next day I will be at home awaiting a call to action. And who knows what will be next? The phases of the pandemic aligned with phases of chaos and rest, but they never indicated a moment of quiet breathing. Hours away from work were stained by the stressful social network game of “who is in whose bubble” and “when can I see my family” and “what is my duty as a health care worker to uphold the highest level of public health precautions”. My mind never stopped:

And on. And on.

For a year I walked into work (happily embracing the excuse for extra walking) with a fear of how I would leave. This is a deadly virus, but come to work anyway. Help people anyway. Put people ahead of you anyway.

There was an inherent struggle in explaining my internal chaos to others. Yes, I am a “health care hero,” but yes, no one asked if I wanted this. I am an advocate and serving my community. But also I am gaining self-serving recognition. I can complain, but I chose this, I gain from this. Overall, my struggles were weightless in comparison to those of the greater community.

But, a year later…March 2021. I am sitting in my bed, groaning from the strangely exhilarating pain that is the creation of antibodies, and I cannot help but take one small moment to breathe. To see that this year has brought me the deepest sense of belonging to a cause. I may have not questioned my role in the virus response in March 2020, but in March 2021 I can see that it was not due to a lack of questioning but rather the result of a genuine sense of fulfillment and joy. I am more myself now than I was before, and this is a rare moment of appreciation.

I was reading my Rose journal from 2020 and saw an entry that drove this point home for me:

Home. I found my home in a pandemic. I stumbled upon a greater understanding of who I am in chaos and who I am in crisis. I found a sense of comfort in standing with those who live in instability. I found a home in the pandemic. I am home with myself, now more than ever before.

It may take me a full extra year to completely recover from the stress and anxiety of working in health care during a pandemic, but I am eager to meet the version of myself at that time. If I have learned anything from my community in the past 12 months, it is that we are resilient and we overcome. When survival takes over, we become shells of ourselves (as we have seen so concretely in 2020), but these shells are asking to be filled in again and begging to protect a newer, stronger, bolder inner-self. I am only just now seeing the ways I am growing into my new shell, only just appreciating how the newly hardened parts of me are covering a softer spot. For this particular moment — for the first time in a while, I choose the rose-colored glasses for my life and look forward to the changes we will create.

Here’s to a vaccinated future :)

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