Pandemic Journals from a Demi-Gen-Z (or Demi-Millennial)
"Today I realized my little hole may never be pounded by Jon Hamm."
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I’ve written a lot over the course of my life, including a few gems and piles of nonsense. This time around, I’d like to share the nonsense.
Time is something I’ve contemplated ever since I grew an adult brain: how it passes, how we juxtapose the stories of our lives against it to form meaning, and how, in certain moments, it seems to come to a pause. I’ve been revisiting some of the journals I’ve written over the past several years to understand how I perceived time across various parts of my life, especially the COVID-19 pandemic. While I find a lot of them to be manic and insignificant, some of them make me smile.
A handful of these journals follow.
P.S. I am currently working on a number of written pieces and navigating getting them placed in a publication, as I've realized that it is important, as a writer, to share your work with new audiences (beyond my mom’s friends — who I consider my friends too ❤️). If you have any tips or leads, please share!
March 10, 2020
Things that are fleeting: This pandemic, the stomachache I have from eating too much peanut butter, and my desire to watch Call Me by Your Name for the 7th time instead of doing my work. Most of all, though, the pandemic (I hope). I can learn a lot right now in these moments: How to operate in a global situation. It is crazy how invasive it can be, mentally and systemically; the best we can do is continue living with mindful and positive attitudes, to trust that we will be healthy and happy, while taking everything seriously and acting smart. And, well, all of these thoughts (that this will someday pass) makes me think about how all of this is fleeting. I thought about everything felt when I first moved to New York City: How hard Grace’s apartment floor was, but how good it felt for my spine. How warm and humid the air was when I moved in August, how new everything looked and felt, how possible, how full, how exciting, how everything seemed so far away and close at the same time—the opportunities, the restaurants, the bars; the people I would come to know and the person I’d become myself. I thought about how I’ll probably think the same thing about my tiny room here, the one I am living in right now with my little loft bed. Some day, someplace else, it’ll all seem precious. Maybe a different apartment in New York or maybe a different place entirely. It is moving so fast and so fluid, even though sometimes it feels like its not (when I’m sitting in an office or feeling stifled around work). I want to tap into the fullness of every moment. They all occur and cease so quickly. This time, here in New York, with all of my close friends nearby, is something I want to know now the way I will know it in the future.
March 11, 2020
Today I realized my little hole may never be pounded by Jon Hamm. I am okay with that possibility. It is funny to think that I think about things that may never truly happen, yet I somehow believe them--specifically when it comes to fucking men. As in men fucking me not “fucking men” as a term used out of frustration with the male race. For example, I’ve thought about Shawn Mendes or @im_gage (I don’t even know his name he’s just a model on IG that I follow) or Jon Hamm or really any man anywhere who I find attractive fucking me. I usually think about these things when I’m laying in bed at night and it keeps me up, I’ll churn my body and make noises that mimic the scenarios I imagine. It’s so grotesque yet also very human, I’m sure more people than just I do this, but most of all kind of hilarious. Sometimes I find myself thinking about these things when I’m walking around too, as I did today while walking to the gym.
March 22, 2020
We’re all connecting virtually these days. It helps. It’s not the same at all, though. I miss everything about New York before. Had one drink, a glass of wine. Watched Beach Rats, an LGBTQ film that reminded me a bit of Moonlight. I’m beginning to fall in love with films again. Went to bed at a decent hour.
I’ve been thinking about how quickly things change. It seems only two weeks ago we were all thinking about different things, worried about different things, unaware of the things we now think and talk about incessantly, the virus and if/when it will be over. It is alarming to see how our lives are built by these basic, little moments and freedoms, the ability to go outside and play, to meet with people, to hug friends and love new lovers, old lovers, kiss each other and touch each other in the sunlight, drink from cups shoulder to shoulder, eat from the same plate, laugh into each other’s laughs and gaze into each other’s eyes without much distance in between us... The truth is I have no idea how things will continue to change. The economy will likely go into a major recession, will not recover quickly no doubt, the virus will spread and things will get worse, people will die, I hope and believe not those I know or hold dear to me, but people nonetheless, with lives and hopes and dreams and plans that never involved any of this. We will leave our cities, our towns, our lives that we built earlier than we intended, perhaps change our dreams, redefine our goals, reconsider who we are and who we were meant to be. Nothing will be the same surely because they have already changed, but things will go back to a type of normal, at some point, though who we all are once that happens I don’t know. I may leave New York, others may leave New York. I suppose the best thing, the brightest reality, is that we all met—we have all been alive together at some point in some place, though we are now all sheltered in our homes, apartments, rooms, individually, we all existed together at some point, and that remains forever.
I guess this whole thing has just made me realize how large our lives seem even though they are built by such small, ephemeral, subjective blocks: people, places, friends, the feeling of community and of belonging to something, the process and practice of going to a place of work, transitioning from one environment to another, sitting in a buzzing space of social interaction, meeting new faces, feeling new possibilities, major depressions and convincing mania; City life. And it all disappears so quickly—so many people have left. Those of us still her can not even see each other. When it comes down to it, really, in a time like this, the things that seem to mean the most are the people we love, and not just our friends—our best and good friends play a part, yes, but it is the people we unconditionally love: Partners, family. Without the ability to gather together as human beings, as communities and societies, our purpose becomes pigeon-holed to a few people, the people that mean the most to us.
March 23, 2020
Our lives have been disrupted without our consent, and that fact, that incident, makes me recognize this can happen at any point. This is life, really; of course it is happening on a major scale, but this is the very nature of life: impermanence, change, ephemerality. It makes me think about the ways in which I ignore that, or have ignored that, to be able to continue living my life in New York, putting things off because New York is New York and it is someone else’s dream or was once mine, meaning that even if it’s not my dream now, it might someday be again—so I stay. I don’t want to wait for my life to be changed anymore, without my consent. I want to change my life myself. It’s short, it’s unpredictable. We ought to go for it, do what we love, try what we’re dreaming of. Enough of this half-assed existence, drinking away sorrows, feeling depressed and happy and depressed and happy, attempting to be perfect so I might not feel depressed again, working to make ends meet, waiting for some moment or convincing myself that at some point everything will change. I don’t think I am that happy in this city; it is alluring, it is passionate, it is convincing and there is so much here. But it will always be here. I came here as a person ready to learn, and it seems I have learned. I am not so sure that I am the person I need to be to learn what this city has left to offer. I might keep waiting and waiting and waiting. I refuse to let those years go by in passivity.
All that is to say, I would like to leave New York. Challenge myself in new ways. Find love. Experience the world again. I think back to when I felt most full of life and realize that it’s been some time since then. I probably haven’t felt that full since my first year in the city, or when I traveled alone to Japan, or when I first lived in Sweden. I’d like to create art, to travel, to live, to love. If I am going to make ends meet and live on a budget, I might as well experience the world doing so. It is all I ever wanted to do, perhaps what I’m best at doing: Putting myself somewhere new and finding the magic in it.
May 16, 2020
I am really happy living at home right now. I’ve been thinking about how we never get any part of our life back. There’s no exchange or return, it is as it is in every moment, always spent, however we feel or think. That’s our life. I’ll miss my parents, I’ll miss my brother, I’ll miss this, all of this, all of us being together. The same way I miss my friends now, my life then, back in New York, before the pandemic—and so I guess we have a choice: to either spend life missing life, or to spend life living it, grasping it for all its glory, loving and being with every moment as we know it, the deep truths, the resonating hum of love and beauty that sits at the root of everything. I need to love my family more, to show them every day. I need to love myself. The trees, the house, the sky, the songs, the shape of my eyes and the sound of my voice. I need to love it all as I do and as I feel, as I know.
I’ve been doing all of the things I always wished I had time for when I lived in New York: writing, journaling, meditating, exercising, meal planning, reading. I do miss the city, though. I woke up today missing parties, just the sheer feeling of being surrounded by people my age, the environment of a celebration. I love that and recognize now just how special it is, the simple environment of a party or a restaurant or a bar, because at the core they’re all just celebrations of life. The environment of the city itself buzzes with joy, expression, loudness, love, loss, strife—the vigor, the zest, the things we associate with movies or songs or books, it’s all there in the atmosphere of a city. I think that’s why I love them so much.
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With love,
Your favorite capybara ~ AKA Travis Zane
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