Reality From Home

Easter 2020.

It's the day my daughter was due, exactly 16 years ago. She came a week early. We named her Lily, anyway.

I just watched the filmed-from-home version of SNL. At the end, they paid tribute to a crew member who passed away of COVID-19

And y'all, it just broke me.

We sit here in our houses, trying to make fun of Zoom meetings and not wearing pants, celebrating the Tiger King and carbs.

Trying to ignore the fact we're stacking corpses in refrigerated trucks in New York City. 

Most days, I can play stay buoyant with the rest of America. 

Something about the raw reality of watching comedians try to be funny from walk-up apartments while paying homage to the sound guy from afar just got me.

I want to go inside a place other than my house.

I want to hug my friends.

I want to hug my parents.

In the wee hours, I'm scared of my daughter getting intubated.

I'm afraid of my loved ones dying.

I know we're all terminal, but not all at once.

The hard bit of this is to not lean in to the fear. To embrace the boredom and the weight gain and the exhaustion that comes from being on video for eight hours straight rather than the real human terror of a global pandemic, something that used to be the stuff of sci-fi pulp fiction and streaming third-rate thriller films.

Tonight, I cried for the sound guy. And for spring 2020. And for the seniors who don't get prom or graduation, the families who unexpectedly said goodbye to someone important, to the exhausted medical workers and Amazon warehouse workers. For the hair stylists and dry cleaner owners who face bankruptcy. 

I hope we never have another Easter like this one, ever again. 

COVID-19