Six Months

H&M shirt
Zara shorts (similar)
Mumico sandals
Mango bag
RayBan sunglasses
Stella & Dot ring
Maris Pearl Co. earrings (similar)
Location: The Winnipeg Clinic – Winnipeg, Manitoba

It’s been six months. I want to go put on a sequinned dress and go out and walk through a crowd in an unfamiliar city with no sense of apprehension and find a bar that serves real champagne where I can dance til dawn in shoes that should hurt my feet, just for tonight.

I sent those words to Topher via text a little over a week ago. They came to be spontaneously, in reaction to a sweet and well-meaning message I received on Instagram. The day before, tired after my first week back at work, I’d posted a snapshot from bed, where I was spending the late afternoon watching a movie. The writer loved the vibe of the photo, they said – it captured exactly where they wanted to be, and what they wanted to be doing, all the time.

…and I was shocked. The idea that yet another afternoon spent in bed with Netflix after six months of quarantine and social distancing measures could still hold any appeal left me dumbfounded. In that moment, I was absolutely not where I wanted to be. I tolerate the inside of my apartment, but I am sick to death of it. I leap at any excuse to leave that feels like it could be relatively safe. When my options are wearing a mask, no matter the activity, or skipping it, I opt for the mask. The first two weeks of respite from the world was restful, but I was always nervous about how long it would go on, and what kind of world we’d be left with at the end of it. Six months later, I desperately want to be part of any world at all.

But I also have a basic understanding of how virology works. So mostly, I stay at home. My social group is limited to ten people, most of whom I don’t see more than once in a given month. I believe that I’m making the right decision for the safety of everyone around me, but it isn’t a decision I take lightly – or without significant regret. I’m an ocean away from the places I love most, with little hope of seeing them again anytime soon. My closet is full of clothes and shoes I love but have nowhere to wear. Unable to go anywhere or experience anything new, with anyone different, I feel stagnant. Books and magazines can only help so much. (I recently subscribed to The New Yorker in a fit of desperation after realising it may be years before I actually set foot in New York again.)

After I sent that text, I transcribed it as a single entry in the notebook I keep beside my bed. Part journal, part travel organizer and diary, part home to a hodge podge of handwritten excerpts to be added to future novels, this is a notebook I’ll look back on someday when I want to remember what it was like to live through 2020. This year, like all others, has had highs and lows. But with the wind rattling outside my window, a sure sign of approaching winter, it feels like I’m on the downslope towards one long low to end the year on. And I hate it, because it’s already been six months. I hate it, and I don’t want to curl up in bed to forget – I want to go out dancing.

Shop the Post