Powering Through The Pandemic

the moonlight drips like butter onto a pale blue blanket

as his snores float among archie comics and trek across mahogany bookshelves;

peter and wendy dance, holding hands and hearts by the ivy curtains and nightstand,

lost in worlds of shadows and sun, 

oblivious to the deafening glow 

of lonely days evolving into restless nights

of a sluggish, bustling world dipped deeper in the ink of despair,

of tumultuous reckonings and stony truths.

their laughter seeps through flaking walls into a purple-toed room,

where a dog with blossoming rigatoni fur gnaws at the fringes of a fleece blanket

wrapped around a girl who forgets that there is a darker side to the moon,

rainbow walls and dimpled chin, 

a light breathes underneath her rosy blanket, flickers and then exhales, 

a novel slammed shut and quelled, its words netted like fireflies between her fingers,

the world she doesn’t understand unpaused

as feathery footsteps emerge from the doorframe, 

the comforting, fleeting embrace of a warm hand on her shoulder, 

gleaming pages fluttering in her palms, and soft pressure sinking to her wriggling toes.

she lays flat against her bed, 

camouflaged underneath her mother’s weary yet protective gaze,

a soft sigh escapes from her lips, her daughter with an empty belly and head full of clouds,

sound asleep in a universe crafted from her fingertips, 

she descends quietly down the wobbling stairs,

fourth night-shift of the week, thinking of the toothy manager 

who traces her wooden skin with copper pupils,

her keys fumble in the pocket of a blouse she purchased years ago,

the ones that were ripped and torn by the man who loves her 

with hands that etch itchy patches of turquoise pools on her skin,

with shards of bottles strewn across a greasy kitchen floor,

who comes home underneath a midnight crescent and forgotten stars

carrying drunken laugher in his rusty fingernails

and washed away yearnings in his shattered heart.

she ignites life into the engine of her father’s old honda, 

a cold breeze submerging into her oak bones,

and drives until powdery fog dissolves into hazy black skies

and her heartbeat slows to the moan of the dying air conditioner,

she looks up at the aging night, its large, speckled gray, apathetic dot hanging in the tepid air,

and wonders if there is another lighter, richer, more beautiful morning-walks-and-purple-skies-and-humming-bids-falling-in-love side to the moon,

that strokes its fingers through her daughter’s dreams

and drips like butter onto her son’s pale blue blanket.

When I look in the mirror, 

I see me,

an unpersonable blob.

I am not,

A beautiful warrior.

What do these stretch marks make me?

A ripped-up monster.

I am NOT,

And I repeat,

I am NOT skinny.

Nope, nope, nope.

Is that really so bad?

Yes, yes, yes.

I see those bulky thighs,

Bumps and lumps everywhere,

I can see it

Who cares if

They are ugly.

Yet

Nobody really knows me.

But

People’s comments?

The ugliest.

Hating myself is

 the only way to live.

Self-love is 

Not survival.

Criticism is

The only way to look at myself.

“because you’re in the world no matter what, even if you shut your windows”

​

YOUR FATHER will ruin your life. Once your father’s fist has opened your esophagus, no other man has to try so hard. You are a vessel. An open throat that does not scream. You love your father, despite the fist. If you could make a sound from your open throat you would tell him you love him first. Only after would you ask him: why did you do this to me? You do not have to ask him why he does not love you back. You could scream. Theoretically. But you are a woman. This is your fatal flaw. Bleeding is much more efficient.

​

“I felt like a piece of me was lost in every lie he forced down my throat.”

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A note. When Sylvia Plath met her husband, Ted Hughes, she drew blood. She bit his cheek in an act of self-defense, or defiance, after Hughes kissed her with “such violence” that both her headband and earrings were ripped off. Later, they spent a night together that left her face “battered” with purple bruises, and her neck “raw and wounded, too.” Similar and worse instances of violence during their marriage are littered throughout her journals. She tells herself,

though: “Consider yourself lucky to have been stabbed by him.” And this may seem odd, if you have not read her poem, “Daddy.” But, once you have, it becomes much easier to understand why Plath mistakes a stab wound for a love letter.

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“I thought it was normal. Every time my mother would leave the house she got a beating. I would stand in

my Hannah Montana pyjamas on the other side of the door listening, learning, watching.”

​

In her devastating poem “Daddy,” Sylvia Plath writes about her father. This is not an easy thing to do. I have tried to do this. And every time I have failed. But Plath succeeds. For those who have not experienced abuse, it may be hard to reckon with the words on the page. I can see, quite clearly, how Plath’s lines may come off as poetic nonsense. She describes wanting to kill her dad, then compares him to God, and then prays “to recover him,” all within the span of nine lines. Confusing, right? But victims of abuse read these words and cry. Relationships with abusers are funny (horrifying, sad, grotesque) in this way. They are contradictory. On one hand, you want him to die. On the other, you want to be the one that kills him. And, always, in the back of your head, you love him. So there is that detail. And it is important. Even when you hate him, you love him. You pray for his salvation. Because he is your father— “a bag full of God,” as Plath says. Because he never taught you the difference between love and abuse. You didn’t choose loving him but you are stuck with it like you are stuck with the bleeding.

​

“Even though I know he doesn’t treat me the way he should, he doesn’t support me or respect me, and has

threatened to disown me multiple times throughout my life, I still find myself wanting to hang out with him

and give him hugs and watch tv and go on car rides. Maybe that’s why I love people who don’t like me and maybe it’s why I don’t even like me very much!”

​

Plath succeeds. But not only in writing about her father. “Daddy” is also about her husband. This is because one could not have existed without the other. Our fathers—or, more generally, our parents— teach us how to be loved. I am thinking about Pecola in Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye. Pecola spends her life watching her father suffocate her family; he perpetuates violence through rape, his fists, the sour smell of alcohol on his tongue. Because she is her father’s daughter, she must ask: “How do you do that? I mean, how do you get somebody to love you?” When your father has not taught you the difference between love and abuse, you are left to figure it out for yourself. For many women, like Plath, this means falling into an abusive relationship later in life. To be sure, there are exceptions. Some women succeed in learning what love is, and the cycle of abuse bursts into a thousand brilliant shards. But for many of us, for me and Plath and (probably) Pecola, “Daddy” becomes about most, if not all, of the men in our lives. Plath’s father was a mold and her husband fit it perfectly. She says to her Daddy, “I made a model of you.”

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“Because of the way I’d grown up and the way love and sex had been portrayed to me, I was only ever attracted to people who treated me negatively.”

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And there is something that we, as readers— as humans— must remember. Ted Hughes drove Sylvia Plath to suicide. I think about this fact a lot. It is impossible not to think of it while reading “Daddy.” Plath wrote “Daddy” while still breathing, sure, but she also wrote it while bleeding out. When you have been a victim of abuse, these two things become so intertwined that they are almost impossible to distinguish. Maybe Plath didn’t know yet that she was going to die, but she surely felt the enormity of her wounds. Hughes had hit an artery. And she is begging us to look. Read this poem like a testament. Read it like a eulogy. Do not take a single word for granted. This is her life laid bare before you. These are our lives held at knifepoint.

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“be skinnier, be whiter, be quieter, be smaller, be less and less and less so that men can pick you up and put you in their pocket like jangly coins and then you’ll have value, they said.”

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At the end of “Daddy,” Plath tries to convince us, and her father— but mostly just herself— that she is through with him. But if we read this poem as a truth, and if we remember that Ted Hughes pushed Sylvia Plath off the edge she had been teetering on, we know that this is not true.

​

We are forced to face an ugly reality.

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“It’s been a little over 2 years now, I thought I was over it. Yet, writing this to you now, it makes me want to cry. It fills me up with hot tears that I want to collect so I can pour it on him. So I can drench him in the fire that burns within me.”

​

Sylvia Plath dies. And it is not poetic or beautiful. It is only further evidence of some sad truths:

That trauma follows you like a ghost. That your father not only dealt you with a blow but

conditioned your body to be a punching bag. That men see a punching bag and get turned on.

That you cannot heal your wounds if you are still being punched and punched and punched.

That when you try to stitch the cut left by your father another blow opens the wound again. That

when a wound opens it bleeds, it festers, it gets infected. And that when you bleed too much you

die.

​

“It was real. I am still here.”

How can I quantify or qualify the events of the pandemic? We have numbers, and we have statistics, and we have fervent accounts, but quarantine—a term that I will use very broadly—is, in my opinion, something of an individual experience. When virtual connections fall short and the days become monotonous, people react differently. In my case, I felt as if I was going through the days from a distance. From April to June, I felt scattered, like I was going through the motions (taking classes, zooming with friends, watching movies with family) but was missing something badly.

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There were no surface consequences; I finished my classes, kept in touch with friends, went on a socially distanced walk or two. But I cannot fool myself into thinking that there will be no effect on myself or others who disengaged these past months. I am incredibly lucky to have a home, stability, and resources for taking care of myself. Not everyone did, and not everyone does. How, then, do the subtle psychological effects of Covid-19 factor in for all of us? When will we begin to see them? Is it even going to be obvious? I’ve been thinking about this lately. Amidst hearing “we’re all in this together” I know that quarantine was worse for some and more manageable for others. People had to deal with different hurts, and for months, I mostly experienced life as viewed through my window—and that is an experience that won’t disappear. I’d like to share a poem that I wrote on May 12, 2020, in tedium. I title this prose “Spring, As Seen Through My Bedroom Window,” and I think it speaks to the fractured way in which so many of us saw our surroundings (and our peers!) from a distance, through a lens, or on a screen.

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May 12, 2020–

There is so much I can say about spring as viewed through my window. At some point, though, it would stop being interesting. Always writing about the same trees, the same backyard, the same neighborhood kids cutting through it. Let me tell you all the ways I am viewing spring from three square feet of glass space. Maybe I should mention the smudges on the window caused by human palms, or the simple toothed divider between glass and screen that’s meant to keep unwanted insects out.

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I could also mention the scent of antifreeze and gasoline that sometimes seeps through when the glass is lifted. Or how the family that lives close by and always grimaces hello grills on Thursday nights. The scent drifts in then, mmmmm, and I’ll inhale just a little, so as not to take too much from something that has not been gifted to me. How do I end this?

​

How does one end spring? I don’t want spring to end if it means not returning to Durham this fall. I don’t want spring to end if it means I’ll still be stuck at this window taking notes throughout the summer. This glass shows me more than just the backyard. It’s a sensory lens, all of it, but I’m cold right now and the sun is getting in my eye. I wish it would stop doing that. I’m not going to close the blinds, or just shut the damn window, but I really wish it would stop doing that—if only until I feel ok again.

Women and the Pandemic

During the ‘Pandemic Summer,’ I had the great fortune of being a remote intern for Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada. I was a health policy intern and also covered issues such as foster care and child care. These issues were more pertinent than ever. I attended stakeholder meetings, listened to briefing events and researched upcoming legislation. What I saw during this experience was that women are bearing the brunt of this pandemic. Women are performing the majority of child care, facing more negative mental health outcomes, are more likely to be essential workers, and will face more long-term employment burdens due to predicted lack of affordable child care. 

Before COVID-19, women were facing challenges balancing home and work life. On average, US women perform an hour and a half more housework daily than male counterparts. The pandemic has contributed to a further increase in the disproportionate burden of housework and child care. In a New York Times poll, US men claimed that they perform the majority of homeschooling, however, only 3 percent of US women agreed that their spouse performs the lionshare of child care duties. While this phenomena of differing perceptions holds true in non-pandemic times, the effects are currently much more severe on female employment due to the significant increase in child care responsibilities. In full-time remote working couples, 28 percent of women reported working less than usual due to domestic work compared to 19 percent of men. The pandemic has only increased penalties and burdens on female workers who are also balancing a family.

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In a stakeholder meeting I attended, I heard of the mental health impacts on women during the pandemic. Women are three times more likely to have reported an increase in mental health challenges due to coronavirus. Researchers hypothesized that this is because of an increased burden of homeschooling and domestic work and increased difficulties associated with paying bills such as housing, water, and food. These impacts are overall attributed the task of ‘taking care of families’ that falls disproportionately on women (in heterosexual relationships). 

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Women, especially women of color are overrepresented in our essential worker workforce. Women are a majority of our essential workers making up 76% of essential workers in healthcare and 73% of essential workers in government and community services. Essential workers faced a difficult choice during the pandemic: to either face unemployment in a bad economy or to go to work and risk contracting COVID. Black and Latina women are more likely to be single heads of households compared to white and Asian counterparts. This lack of a safety net means Black and Latina women were even more constrained in their choice to continue working. What is even crueler in this pandemic is that many women who maintained employment as essential workers were paid less than individuals on unemployment due to the federal cash supplement. 

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Lastly, women will face the burden of the pandemic for years to come as the child care industry slowly collapses. With increased costs (of cleaning and testing) and reduced enrollment (for safety) many child care centers are not maintaining a profit. Child care is already prohibitively expensive. In some states, child care costs more than tuition at a public university. Senator Patty Murray of Washington proposed the Child Care is Essential Act which would provide $50 billion in emergency stabilization funding for struggling child care centers. Unfortunately, in the current do nothing McConnell senate, it was ignored along with the rest of emergency Coronavirus legislation. The Center for American Progress estimated that half of US child care capacity will disappear leaving working families, particularly working mothers, with difficult choices ahead. 

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My time as a health policy intern during Coronavirus made me at times despondent, but ultimately I left hopeful. While practically every day I learned of new negative impacts falling disproportionately on women, I learned about this reality from dedicated people working to change these situations. Women have a way to go to achieve true and lasting equality, but I am reassured by the effort and ingenuity being done to solve these problems, day in and day out.

In an article from The Lancet, professor of global health policy, Clare Wenham, cites that during the west Africa Ebola virus disease outbreak what “showed the biggest threat to women’s and girls’ lives was not the virus itself, but the shutdown of routine health services and fear of infection that prevented them from going to health facilities that remained open.” This is proving to be the case for the current COVID-19 pandemic, as well. However this time on a much larger scale. Globally, access to gynecologic, reproductive, and sexual health services has taken a hit due to the risks imposed by COVID transmission. 

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Over the course of the past few months, it is estimated that over nine million women and girls around the world have lost access to contraception and safe abortion services. Diminished access to these vital resources has left women vulnerable to increased risk of infection, unplanned pregnancies, and dangerous abortion procedures. In addition to this, in-person visits to healthcare providers can often catch signs of physical abuse or intimate partner violence for women and children. This measure cannot be fully taken advantage of in an increasingly digital healthcare space, where telemed visits are becoming the new normal, and a visit online may not be entirely private.  

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In many cases, women’s health services, like contraception availability and abortion have been deemed non-essential, even though they may deal with time sensitive medical procedures. Unfortunately our present situations have been scapegoated by conservative policy makers and politicians to lockdown abortion access altogether. This summer, governors in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabma, Oklahoma all put a hold on medication and surgical abortions, categorizing them as elective procedures or claiming that they waste personal protective equipment (PPE). Meanwhile, OBGYNs and medical practitioners have been perfectly able to adapt these procedures into methods women can perform at home with the assistance of a doctor online, or safely in-person with cautionary measures and PPE necessary to all doctors. Again, the issue at hand may not be the virus itself, but rather the fear of infection and dissemination of medical information improperly placed in the hands of politicians (who are notably primarily white men). Worldwide, it is estimated that COVID-19 pandemic will be responsible for 2.7 million unsafe abortions and 11,000 pregnancy related deaths in 2020.

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Now, in September, clinics have begun to open up and access has been restored to women’s health practices, particularly in the United States and Europe. However, it is troubling to see just how easy it was to shut down these services during a medical crisis. As stated by women’s health practitioners in the New England Journal of Medicine, “our system of abortion care delivery must be strengthened in ways that prevent abortion access from being so easily rescinded in times of health system stress, whether minor or substantial.” Beyond this, COVID-19 has really opened our eyes to the large health disparities that already existed, especially for women, low-income patients, and people of color. As we move forward with elections on the horizon, it only seems proper that we address these concerns now, before we are put in this situation again.

In July, a paparazzi snapshot of Lana Del Rey on a 7-Eleven run blew up on Twitter. The viral photo amassed criticism as Del Rey wore a tight top and short shorts, revealing she had gained weight. As I scrolled through the users who fat-shamed her, I posed the question as to why this was even newsworthy— why was this celebrity receiving scrutiny for gaining weight during quarantine? Should I also feel bad for putting on weight during quarantine? 

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I was not by any stretch of the imagination “fit” before the pandemic struck. I’d grimace at the thought of running or completing a pushup. Nor was I healthy, as I lived a busy schedule swarmed with classes, extracurriculars, and a part-time job, resulting in days where I’d skip meals, or the only food I had were the fortune cookies at my job’s desk. My unhealthy ways worsened because of Covid. I became sedentary, with my daily steps collapsing from 5,000 to 500. With my days feeling so terribly elongated, I filled my boredom by snacking on bags after bags of popcorn and pita chips. My sleep habits worsened as well. I became nocturnal, sleeping at 8am but wide awake by midnight. I lost all motivation to work out, as I thought, “I’m not seeing anyone, so why does it matter?” As if my body existed only as a view for everyone else, not for my own well-being. 

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After a few months stuck at home, a realization struck that my body would inevitably change because of my poor habits. My friends started messaging me about their daily runs and workout sessions. They were invested in their new favorite smoothies and health bars. I learned of the infamous “Chloe Ting ab challenge”, a 2-week online program intended to give participants Chloe’s desired physique. Despite initially not caring about my body’s appearance because I was hidden away at home, my sentiment changed after this point. A feeling similar to FOMO filled me, as I feared that everyone had become slim and fit with 6-pack physiques, and I was slipping behind, becoming increasingly flabby and unattractive. Thus, I embarked on a mission to catch up. I began cleaning my diet up, spending hours on videos by fitness gurus and models retelling what they ate in a day. I gave into the Chloe Ting hype, as I began doing her workouts every night. 

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The first few days I was motivated by the fact that I would eventually reach my “dream body,” one similar to big name models like the Hadid sisters or Adriana Lima. It took me a while before I reminded myself that I was not 5’10, nor was my career predicated on achieving that body. However, I did find a sense of accomplishment by sticking to healthier, more realistic habits. Day by day, workouts would go by faster and feel easier. I loved eating healthier too, as my body felt nourished by eating cleaner. I realized my behavior should be predicated on how I feel rather than what I was supposed to look like for others. 

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Most importantly, I felt healthier mentally. The unrealistic expectations surrounding us for what a woman’s body should look like is nothing new. So, to answer my initial question as to why Lana Del Rey’s weight gain roused so much attention, look to how we’ve lost sight of what a normal body looks like. Endless people have called out these unattainable standards, yet endless continue to feed into the expectations. We have attributed such severe importance to looking like super thin models and celebrities. In reality, there should be no standards or expectations for a body. Everyone lives different lives with different habits, and we are currently living lives completely altered by a pandemic, and our bodies are going to reflect that. There was nothing wrong with my body before I started eating “healthy” and working out, nor is there anything wrong with the “fitter” lifestyle. Lana Del Rey’s body is just as normal and beautiful after gaining weight as Adriana Lima’s. Stuck in a lockdown where a sickly virus is spreading rapidly in our nation, the only real standard our bodies have is to ensure we survive. Our bodies are our safe spaces and our temples; thus, we ought to treat them kindly. 

time shouldn’t be stagnant;

it ought to flow

like electrons through magnets

a world that can’t be frozen.

the sun is supposed to rise,

a ball of fire 

that remains in the skies,

but suddenly it’s everywhere.

humans aren’t meant to be stuffed

like peas in a pod;

we became handcuffed

to a building that ceased to be home.

communication: the next hurdle

something that was never a problem before

became a failed attempt at wordle;

where no one was heard and no one listened.

true colors seems to go to far

but that’s exactly what was discovered.

tradition became a bazaar

for parents to pick and choose what was allowed. 

the beginning was wrapped in a bow;

even pandora’s box was beautiful.

anything to not break the familial vow

when there was such disagreement.

protests, politics, and planned parenthood

battling ignorance outside and at home

Became a could, should, would,

Not without fears of injury or infection.

supposedly the sun also set.

along with our motivation

maybe it was just a bad mindset

but things that once brought joy were now monotonous.

time was static.

despite happenings, the world remained enclosed

in a single house that became problematic.

but we stay, just to be safe.

hardwork | härd wərk |

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noun

​

1 a justification for hell

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“I’m not crazy… I’m just a hard worker…” mumbled over and over, backed by an internalized promise to self that I was busy, but not overwhelmed; moving fast but not too fast.

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2 an indoctrination of agitation

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I was obsessed with the future. I was planning for the next moment, the next minute, next day, searching for a remedy for how I was possibly going to get everything done. “What’s next, what’s next?” played on a constant loop, steady as my heartbeat, more frantic with each repetition. “To be” was no longer simply to exist; it was to run as if stopping could only end in collapse.

3 a dangerous distraction

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The introduction of a global pandemic ground my constant movement to a halt. It was like someone had turned off the treadmill with me still running, leaving me in a crumpled ball. Forcibly extracted from my world of constant agitation, I was a fish-out-of-water, gasping for air, asking “what now?”

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heart-beat |ˈhärtˌbēt |

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noun

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1 the steady rhythm of the heart

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A certain anticipatory moment exists between heart beats, a careful jig. Boom; boom; boom. The distance between is not so finite as to be curtailed by a period, though each beat possesses a more definite gap than could be separated by a comma.

2 the regulator of life

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Vital, yet no more complex than the blink of an eye, the grasp and release of shaking hands, the opening and closing of a jaw. A perfect simplicity, a reliable peace, housed within a 24-bone nest inside me.

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hibernation |ˌhībərˈnāSH(ə)n |

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noun

​

1 remaining in a dormant state

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I suddenly saw myself in an impenetrable bubble. I could still look out at the world from my safe haven, but I didn’t have to keep stretching my bubble out further and further to make more room for what “needed” to enter, what wanted to consume my space, to consume me.

2 a conservation of energy

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The solution to a finite amount of time was no longer to magically make more time; it was to just do less, to take a breath, to step back and detach. With nowhere to look except right back at myself, I finally understood I needed to put my hands up and insist, “no more.” It was a rebuilding of barriers, a refinement of self. It was rediscovering a new resting heartbeat.

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home | hōm |

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noun

​

1 a building used for an extended stay

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For too long, I remained in a house that was cracking at the seams, the roof leaking, the pipes rusting, with me still inside— unknowingly patching my house, with my math homework in one hand, walking my dog in the other.

2 a safe haven

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Home is a location for some. We say we feel at home in nature or in the confined cages of our bedrooms, but for me, a place quickly transformed into too many things. The lines got blurred, and suddenly everything became a so-called home: anxiety, agitation, anger, a ticking time bomb gunning for self-destruction.

3 oneself

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So, what is home to me? It’s me. Being forced to put my life on pause during the pandemic made me consider where I’d been and where I wanted to go; to develop some pride. I finally took the time to stare myself down in the mirror and say: yes this is me, yes I did this, and that thing is a good thing; it’s enough.

At 11:59 pm, December 31st, 2019, my stomach was churning in anticipation.

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For me, it has been a fact of life that 2020 would be a year to remember. Throughout elementary school, this number, stapled to the front of classroom bulletin boards, greeted me every morning; at the end of each school year, it followed me home, emblazoned on the back of my class t-shirt, decorated haphazardly with the Sharpie signatures of my fellow classmates. By the time middle school rolled around, 2020 had officially wormed its way into my identity, occupying a space somewhere in-between my birthdate and my zip code. There was a sense of pride that I took in belonging to 2020 and having 2020 belong to me. After all, 2020, before the fact, was kind of perfect—special even. Wasn’t it? 2020 is a re-arrangement of 2002, my birth year. 2020 would mark the dawn of a new decade. 2020 would be a leap-year, a year lucky enough to have an extra day. 2020 held the promise of Corning’s “A Day Made of Glass” series as well as the excitement of a Summer Olympic Games. 2020 would bring in a new president, the first that I would be able to vote for. 2020 would not be just another year. 2020 would be limitless.

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At 12:00 am, January 1st, 2020, 1 million people witnessed the Times Square ball drop live in New York. 600 miles away, I was sobbing in the middle of my living room.

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In the span of less than a second, I felt a decade’s worth of nostalgia hit my lungs at full force, processed the fact that 2020 was finally happening, and realized that I was not entirely ready to be a legal adult in a few months, all the while questioning whether the anticipation of 2020 for years on end could ever be matched by the year itself.

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Unsurprisingly, those were not the last tears that I shed over the idea of 2020. Just a few months later, as COVID-19 progressed from an epidemic to a pandemic, the world suddenly stopped right when I had expected everything to begin. My dream of a perfect year was shattered, and I spent the first few weeks of quarantine selfishly mourning it. As days began to bleed together, I went from longing for 2020 to wanting it to be over.

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At 5:23 pm, September 29th, 2020, I sit at my computer looking for the right words, if there are any. Perhaps this moment means something more to someone else.

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Ironically, now that 2020 is slowly drawing to an end, I am not quite ready to part with it. I have finally come to appreciate 2020 for all the quiet hours it has given me to reflect on myself and the world around me. This year, I have learned so much that I had not allowed myself to understand earlier. Some of what I have learned may seem to be simple truths but are not so simple for other female-identifying individuals to accept. For example, I’ve learned that wanting to lose weight doesn’t make me any less of a feminist. I’ve learned that I don’t have to wear my hair down, up, curly, or straight for anyone; the way I wear my hair is for me. Most of all, I’ve learned that hitting the unsubscribe button to being a “good girl” does not make me any less of a good human.

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For too long, I have been policing myself with quick internal reminders that good girls don’t ask, good girls don’t make mistakes, good girls aren’t “bossy”, good girls don’t voice their opinion if it causes conflict, good girls do what is asked and expected of them, and good girls always keep a plastic smile on their face. Good girl syndrome, as it is called, has left me feeling like I am not good enough more often than not, and has caused me to rely on external validation. This idea of a “good girl” is not something that I chose, but rather something society has subconsciously conditioned me to believe.

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Now that I have the choice, I choose to leave the “good girl” image behind. Recovering from good girl syndrome isn’t something that I have done in a day; it’s something that I’m still working on. It comes in small successes, such as speaking up when I have an opinion to share or admitting that I’m not okay when I have had a bad day. It means that I can finally accept that I am imperfect and be myself, not the person that society wants me to be.

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I am not perfect. The world is not perfect. It was ridiculous and certainly naïve for me to expect 2020 to be perfect. All those years ago, sitting in my kindergarten classroom donning a class of 2020 t-shirt, I could not have known what the numbers on my back would bring. While this year is far from the vision I expected to wish into reality, I am thankful for what it turned out to be. It may not be a shining symbol of optimism, but for me, 2020 has been a symbol of growth, and in a broader sense, a symbol of resilience. To 2021, I say, bring it on!

I did my fair share of complaining during quarantine. The superficial dissatisfactions of not having a prom or graduation. I stopped myself from delving into these trivial worries by looking up the influential women in life who were sacrificing so much and working so hard during this pandemic.

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My aunt worked hard to balance her work at home with taking care of her two six-year-olds, helping them stay logged on in their online Zoom classes while she worked diligently.

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My mother had to put through salary cuts and getting used to a new work format while being there for my sister and me throughout this tough time.

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My other aunt who lives in Venezuela is struggling with the lack of medical and mask supplies there but is still working hard every day in her job taking all the appropriate repercussions with her job in dentistry.

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And my other aunt in Spain who works as a paramedic, risking her life to help those in need. She worked through strenuous long hours day and night to help her community.

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My Chemistry teacher who was teaching our Zoom class had to also do her motherly duties, feeding her infant baby, and making sure her four years were focused on his online school studies.

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My friend from school who maintained her job in the local grocery store, working through weeks of uncertainty covering her co-worker’s shifts who were more at risk and doing an exceptional job as an essential worker.

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These are just women that I personally know. So many women around the world have pushed through these difficult times, inspiring us all. Thank you.

I – laundry

every Saturday morning my grandma does laundry

every Saturday afternoon there are clothes drying in the yard

the pandemic does not change this, 

even as the world revolves swiftly onwards

her grandchildren do not think she feels the shock waves,

at least not as much as they do,

but she does.

she does.

every night she calls her daughter, who lives across the Pacific

and sees that her life has gone back to normal

pre-January, pre-pandemic

months later, and my grandma still does laundry on Saturday mornings

the only difference is that she must include the masks

worn by each family member throughout the week

months later, and still nothing is normal,

except for the laundry hanging in the yard on Saturday afternoons

II – hotpot

my grandma’s children and grandchildren

are all grown up,

but she is still the matriarch,

and would not let anyone else cook 

she used to be alone all day,

until we got back from school

but now we are always home,

and we start to cook too

my cousin makes ribeye,

my sister and I do pizza, my dad crafts

poke and spam musubi

but when we have hotpot, we all cook together

III – the cat 

on his face is a Rorschach test 

and condescending eyes

he is a puff of smoke with little cat feet  

he sprawls out, claws out, 

on my father’s leather couches,

and the bathroom rug

he touches his pink nose to people’s hands,

and the pools of his eyes shift

with the day, from slit to eclipse

my grandma chases him away 

from her feather duster, and scolds him 

for walking too close to the curtains,

my grandma asks where he is, 

points at his dish repeatedly

when he hasn’t finished his lunch,

and when he paws at the garage,

she asks him why he’s upset

he is another child, 

to be fair, he’s a child she refuses to touch,

but he’s still another child

“The Building circular – an iron cage, glazed – a glass lantern about the size of Ranelagh – The Prisoners in their Cells, occupying the Circumference – The Officers, the Centre. By Blinds, and other contrivances, the Inspectors concealed from the observation of the Prisoners: hence the sentiment of a sort of invisible omnipresence. – The whole circuit reviewable with little, or, if necessary, without any, change of place.” — Jeremy Bentham (1791). Panopticon, or The Inspection House

8:00 AM. The alarm clock wails, begs, screeches. I wake up. I try to wake up. Swaddled inside a nest of blankets, I roll to my left, then my right, trying to overcome the heavy sloth. The warmth. But all the jostling accomplishes is finding a more comfortable position for me to snuggle in. I melt into the mattress. Sinking. Drifting. Into a luxurious, decadent soup. Cream of mushroom. Into a tub of butter. I am butter. The summer was blazing, but once September hit the nights went frigid, the mornings a freezing ordeal. It was as if the month had punched the sun in the gut—all of its heat expelled and dissipated into the hollow blackness of space. Let’s see. What day is it supposed to be today? Monday? Thank god it’s not Monday. Wait. I had philosophy and multi yesterday…so yesterday was Tuesday…so today’s Wednesday. Guh—I hate Wednesdays. Stupid 8:30s. Stupid econ lectures. I don’t wanna go. What time is it anyways? I turn to the alarm, still ringing away. Oh 8:27. Ok. Blink. Huh? 8:27? 8:27 AM? Shit. Nearly bashing my head into the ceiling, I jolt out of bed. Emerging from my shell like Aphrodite. Without the beauty or the grace. I leap to my computer chair and flip my laptop on. Luckily, it was only in sleep mode. If I had shut it down last night, it would take at least five minutes to start back up. I hammer my password into the keyboard, press enter, minimize the quarter-written quarter-crapped essay on Durkheim and Ritual Norms: The Sacred versus The Profane, close out of whatever was brewing in that chapter of Multivariable Calculus, 6th Edition, Johnson & Stevens, fish out the zoom link to the econ lecture. Click. A loading circle. That spinning hex. I check the time on the computer. 8:29 AM. Fuck. I haven’t even brushed my teeth. My hair looks like that? And oh my face—Don’t show video it is. “Good morning everyone. Before we continue on with Labor Supply and Demand, I just wanted to ask if you could turn on your video that would be great. Of course, I’m not forcing anyone if they’re uncomfortable…but it would help me a lot to see your faces and not have to speak into a void.” You are forcing us if you put it like that. I wanted to leave the lesson then and there—the fat red button a tantalizing escape—but I reluctantly turn my video on. As soon as I do, the white light of the camera bores itself into my forehead. I can feel it searing my skin away. A laser sight locked onto me. I expect a bullet to rattle through my skull any second. Damn. She just shared her screen too. I can’t even see anyone. I can’t see myself. But everyone can see me. Just the mere thought makes my body go rigid. My face still as a stone. I stare at the slides but can’t make anything of them. They don’t even process as images or information. I’m just looking at a monitor. A lightbulb. Flashing lights and colors. My brain is unable to connect the pixels together. I can’t take it anymore. Gallery view. I finally take another look at myself but find no relief. I’m hideous. I should’ve at least changed. Or showered. There was no time though. I hate myself. I’m such an idiot. This is so embarrassing. Worse, I could now see the faces of some other students. And if I scrolled along the sidebar, I would find many, many more waiting to tear me apart. I can no longer hear the professor’s voice. Her lips move, but none of the soothing charisma leaks out. Her voice’s silky chime goes silent. She’s not on mute. I know for sure. A sudden nausea overwhelms me, bloating my stomach and making its way up to my throat. I swallow it down so hard, I’m afraid my esophagus might have ruptured. I stifle my choking; suck in the curt, uneasy breaths. But my heart continues to batter my ribs, its pounding so incessant I fear they can somehow hear it. I pretend to take notes. My pen scribbling at the air. An excuse to look down. But instead I grow more anxious. I must deceive them. Are they still watching me? I try to avert my gaze, but am unable to resist looking back up. An astonishing sight meets my eyes. Replacing the PowerPoint presentation, the screens of some one hundred twenty or so students were arranged into a neat matrix. Instantly, their faces began to morph into massive, macabre eyeballs. Perfectly round. Perfectly white. Clean symmetrical spheres. Glaring. Each eyeball is completely smooth and unblemished with not a vein in sight. They don’t even have pupils. They almost couldn’t have been called eyes. The bright lights hypnotize me. Horrify me. Petrify me. I can’t blink or look away. Sooty, wanton spots with luminous, iridescent rings dapple my already bleary vision. I can scarcely make out milky white films the size of pinheads that sit on each eyeball where the pupils should have been. The sound of their damp squelching unnerves me as the diaphanous fluid, like liquid chrome, zips across their respective eyes in a gyroscopic pattern. Then, like incisive pendulums, the eyes rock back and forth. They strain and bulge in their surveillance. They’re searching for something. For me. They don’t even have pupils, how could they see me? No. They’ll find me for sure. Perhaps they already have. Fuck. No. As much as I don’t want to, my vision continues to focus on the jouncing eyes, not once blinking. I am compelled to look at them. I have lost all say and control over my body. And there are so many eyes. The blinding orbs just hang inside their little rectangular boxes like a million miniature suns, suspended by unseen threads. Perhaps not all of them, but surely the odds that at least one of them is aware of me was high. It was a near certainty. Hidden within the droves of swarming eyes, a concealed enemy watches me with the lurid intensity of a hawk. I wilt under their probing gaze. No matter where I look, I can’t tell if such an enemy exists, but the mere chance possibility that I could be discovered terrifies me to no end. Those unobservable eyes staring at me stare through me. They go right past me. It drives me mad. I’m frightened. I’m furious. I can’t move. A puncturing pain throbs from the back of my head. Great. A headache too. In the corner of my vision, I make out the time. Not even ten minutes had passed since the class started. A perfect start to the day.