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I can't believe how long this has gone on. It feels like it's been an eternity, but it simultaneously feels like it's been a lot less time than it has. I think it's because so many days are exactly the same. A couple of times when I was a young kid, I remember feeling disoriented after waking up from deep, dreamless sleep feeling like I closed my eyes a second ago. It feels like that. For months, I didn't think anything of all the thinkpieces and such saying, "Stop waiting for life to go back to normal, because it never really will." I didn't really believe that in March. Or April. Or May. Or June. Or July. Or August. Or even September. But I believe it now. It's difficult to accept, to get to that final stage of grief. Even after the pandemic is finally through, whenever that will be, I will never again live in a world that doesn't bear some of the social and political transformations of this year. I'm so tired. I'm writing this at 3 AM because there's nothing that offers any escape. Watching a movie or reading a book just reminds me of the way things were, and may never be again. I have nowhere to physically escape to. And even when I do, reminders of the way things are are everywhere. But I've been lucky. I'm a PhD candidate (which means all my coursework and exams are through, and I only have my dissertation to work on). I also work 20 hours a week at an intellectual job that I work from home. My income as a grad student has always made for a very tight budget, but I haven't lost my job. I'm not often in high-risk situations. No one I know has gotten sick. The pandemic has made me more appreciative of what I have. But I live alone, and I'm single. I have pet birds I love dearly, but it's not the same as having someone to decompress with about all this. This stage of graduate school is a lonely one in normal circumstances, and it couldn't be lonelier now. At the end of the day either working or writing my dissertation, I don't have anyone or anything but the doom and gloom of current events. I see an endless stretch of an evening and don't know what to do with myself. I don't have the relief of coming home, where I've been all day. I drink more, because it tricks me into thinking I'm doing something fun where I'd be drinking. Sometimes I watch YouTube videos of places I've been with a drink in hand thinking I'll feel better, and I just feel worse. I hate it. I hate all of this. I hate not knowing what kind of future comes after both the pandemic and the political turmoil. I hate that I'm supposed to just go about my work as if everything is totally normal when it's the least normal it's ever been, in my lifetime, anyway. Thinking about the job market after the PhD feels ridiculous. Not simply because there aren't any jobs, but because it calls for planning for some sort of normal future that I just don't know how to envision.
October 9, 2020