Wait, did we all not just live through that?

I survived the pandemic of COVID-19 (so far), but will I survive the outfall of the year that was 2020? MAYBE NOT. I’m sorry, but was anyone else living through a global meltdown or did I fever dream all of this? How many of you are reading this from Mexico? Be honest… Look, it’s not that I’m raging with envy (I am) or broke beyond whatever I thought was “struggling” before (I am), but to quote the TikTok (lol), “what happened to the original plot of the movie?” Some of you found *LOVE* during the pandemic? Some of you went on *vacation*? Hold up. For the millions of the rest of you who took unemployment checks and dragged your sorry asses back to our hometowns while our loved ones were on their death beds from the novel coronavirus, I write to you in good company. Yes, there is always someone suffering worse than I am, but Instagram has let me know that there are many people who are absolutely not. I long for the day I can once again receive a sunburn in my barely-nipple-covering bikini, but alas, the past year has rendered me financially incapable of such. A shorthand way of saying this is: I AM BROKE, BRO. But a quick scroll on the humbling app that is Instagram has let me know that the Law of Attraction will save me. All jokes aside, why not give this a go? I mean, what do I really have to lose? Since March of 2020, I lost my job, my home, my boyfriend, and any sense of direction. I lost about half of my hair, ten pounds (yay!), and every, single stream of income. Baby, I am at ground zero and the only way to go is up. Part of the Law of Attraction is pretending you already have the things you desire. ‘Pick and choose as if you’re doing so from life’s catalog’ or something similar is the foundational sentiment. My desires make up a lengthy list, but mostly I want to travel and be a decadent broad. I grew up in Anchorage, Alaska; I DESERVE this. And while I feel like a failure at most other endeavors, my bank account, self-worth, and will to live have completely nose-dived in the past year. Truly, I ask again: what do I have to lose? Since March of 2020, I have been able to stare at myself in the mirror and see things I had been ignoring for years (not the wrinkles, but they, too, have become more apparent). Since I was 18, I have been running from personal problems and shortcomings just to find myself completely stagnant with the rest of the world and those problems finally caught up to me. When the jig was up, it was myself, after all. I had been the problem. Putting in the work meant tenuous emotional labor. Now I’m ready to run again; not from problems, but DEFINITELY from my f*cking hometown, which YEAH, I RETURNED TO WHEN THE PANDEMIC STARTED BECAUSE I KNEW I WOULD GO BROKE. Did I attract that? Hell no. Has it sucked ass? 100%. Growing up, if the task of cleaning my room proved daunting, my mom’s ADHD ass would tell my ADHD ass to “start in a corner” and thus I will begin in a corner. Here is my corner right now: I am in one side of a duplex and the cheap laminate floor has been ripping since I moved in here last June. I moved in because I could not live in my parent’s basement and survive 2020 (and not because of COVID and no, this is not a joke). I also moved in because my now ex-boyfriend said he would spend more time with me. He didn’t. He said he would see only me during the pandemic. He didn’t. Currently, my computer is overheating. It is 11:53 PM on a Sunday. I am in my hometown of Anchorage, Alaska, where I was BORN and RAISED. I’m unhappy, but it is still light outside and after living through the asshole that is an Alaskan winter, that makes me grateful. There are some details I love about this town, but I have wanted to leave as long as I can remember – and I have left. Several times. But a pandemic boomeranged me hard, hurling me backwards with a force that seems unfair, if not cruel.

Tonight, I start in the corner. My corner.