2020-2021

I wake up dehydrated all the time. Especially in the middle of the night. I feel like that dry SpongeBob meme. I tell someone I know that I am thinking of buying Pedialyte to help with it. They laugh.

“That’s for kids,” they say.

“No, the commercial says adults can use it too.”

“Why don’t you just drink more water?”

They must not know how much water a human being is supposed to drink. I’ve researched this. Three liters of water. I am supposed to drink three liters of water everyday. I can’t do that, I’d be going to the bathroom all the time. Who has that much time in the day? 

I need to work. Gain money and experience, that’s the goal. Working at an animal clinic during a pandemic is interesting. We do curbside, so I go back and forth taking pets- whether happy, scared, or aggressive- from here to there. I’m a pet valet. I’m getting my steps in. I’m getting fur inside my mask. I also learn that a lot of people don’t know what kind of car they drive.

It’s going to be difficult when summer rolls around. Not just because of the heat, but because I won’t be able to hide my arms behind long-sleeved shirts. My skin is breaking out. It looks like leprosy from the Bible. Okay, that’s dramatic, but it’s bad. I could go to the dermatologist, but I’ve always hated going to the doctor, and rona doesn’t help. This pandemic has changed so much.

On a personal level, I shouldn’t complain. No one I know has gotten sick and I have stable employment. But also, my relationships have become virtual.  The repeated impulse I have to weirdly wave before I hit the “leave meeting” button, my microphone refuses to cooperate, and my internet is as unstable as I feel some days. Again, dramatic but not completely untrue. This year has forced my plans to shift, rearrange or simply plummet into the garbage bin. This year has also made me come to a realization, there’s a difference between wanting to be alone and being lonely. No one ever tells you it’s possible to dread social interaction and have FOMO at the same time.

When this thing started, we were thrilled to have an extended spring break. Be able to lounge around the house and wear pajamas from the neck down in zoom meetings. Now we are counting down the days til we are free again. It doesn’t help that the world decided to fall apart at the same time. 

Murder, Protests, an 8 PM curfew, the National Guard has been called in. It’s the first week in June.

What’s unfortunate is that I am 22 and already disillusioned with my country. Shocked that justice has been served. Shocked because Maya Angelou said that when people show you who they are, believe them the first time. This country has shown me and my people who they are several times, but we haven’t learned. And I am-

Angry

That anger is dangerous and if you let it out, I don’t know if you can get it back in. Why is this my plight in life? Why is this every black person’s plight in life? James Baldwin said : “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.” He’s right, so I try to stay unconscious, find something that can make me feel numb. Alcohol won’t do, not fond of the taste.  Sleep, sleeping should work. You can’t feel the hatred of racism in the safety of your own bed. Wait, that’s not true either.

Back to Angelou and Baldwin. They inspire me, so many incredible writers do. I want to be like them, but can I? They were prolific, insightful. I referenced a SpongeBob meme a couple lines up. But why compare?

To compare isn’t fair

To compare leads to despair

To compare leaves you bare

I’m a regular Langston Hughes. 

I actually did my senior thesis on a James Baldwin novel. I completed my thesis while the world was on fire. My mom wants to buy me a mask that says: “I graduated during a pandemic”

It’s cute and charming but also sad and disheartening because how is it fair that I (and so many others) have had to live, learn, and grow during a global pandemic? But this year has erased the word “fair” from everyone’s vocabulary.

It has been a rough and brutal time, but it’s hard for me to see my way out of it. This nightmare has also become my crutch. No more remote work, just work work. Soon I’ll have to trade in awkward virtual interactions for awkward in-person interactions. I’ve fallen in love with what I used to hate. This is Stockholm syndrome, this is refusing to move on, this is fear of the future. 

There is so much that needs to be unpacked. But that’s a problem for future me. Right now, I’m checking the prices of Pedialyte on Amazon.

About the Author

Jared Ellison is a senior English Major with a concentration in Creative Writing at Arcadia University. He has a passion for writing and loves to discuss a wide range of literature from Shakespeare to Toni Morrison to Angie Thomas. In his free time, you can find him reading a good book, watching something on Netflix, or pondering what is going on in his cat’s head.