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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

<strong>I can't believe how long this has gone on.</strong> 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. <strong>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. </strong>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. <strong>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.</strong> 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. <strong>But I've been lucky.</strong> 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. <strong>I hate all of this.</strong> I hate <strong>not knowing what kind of future comes after</strong> both the pandemic and the political turmoil. I hate <strong>that I'm supposed to just go about my work as if everything is totally normal</strong> when it's the least normal it's ever been, in my lifetime, anyway. Thinking about the <strong>job market </strong>after the PhD feels ridiculous. Not simply because there aren't any jobs, but <strong>because it calls for planning for some sort of normal future that I just don't know how to envision.</strong>