A long road…

One hundred and thirty days in 500 sq ft is tough, and you definitely don’t realize the strain and stress you’re under until you’re (lucky enough) to leave.  When we first picked our 1bd apartment three years ago, we were okay with it being tiny because we knew we’d never be home. Come Covid, with the two of us working from home, on work calls 8am-6pm and then having nowhere else to move around, made things feel real tight.

NYC is still having it’s issues. We’re celebrating that we only have 500 cases / day… but New Yorkers are so damn tough. It’s been equally amazing and heartbreaking to watch. There’s been a bond created between the New Yorker’s who stayed the course and did the right thing. And then there’s New Yorker’s who did things like this and this.

Aside from the few irresponsible, what’s been extraordinary to watch, have been the people; and the resilience they’ve shown. Especially the expat community who battened down the hatches, kept their heads down and prepared to ride this out, alone.

March was a time full of anxiety and fear of the unknown. April was a really tough month, full of sadness and full of disbelief around the lack of leadership. Here are a few moments that stand out over the last few months:

April & May 2020:

• Climbing out the window & leaning over the balcony at 7pm for 100 days to clap for our first responder health care workers, and the sense of community seeing our neighbours do the same thing
• “How can you get a COVID19 test in NYC?”  “Cough on a rich person and wait for them to get the test results back” – speaks to the inequalities that came to light in the following months
• Looking at the empty streets of NYC from our balcony and seeing only a hearse on the road
• Watching ambulances pull up to neighboring buildings, ambos getting out and getting geared up to receive their next COVID19 patient
• The feeling of my stomach sinking every time a siren wailed in April when the city was losing 500+ people / day and holding my breath until it passed
• The buzz and excitement of NYC, replaced by a deep sadness
• Heartbreak around pushing out our wedding indefinitely, not returning home to celebrate and see our closed friends and family; something we were looking forward too for so so long and had been planning for, for years
• Fostering a little Russian Blue cat named Blue, whose owner was sick in hospital
• Becoming a cat lover
• Practicing daily gratitude & yoga
• Footage of Ahmaud Arbery surfaced from February, showing him going for a jog in in Georgia and being gunned down by two white men who claimed to be making a “citizens arrest”
• The death of George Floyd and the uproar that followed
• Murder Hornets
• People protesting and demanding the stay-at-home-orders be lifted, complaining these protocols for our own protection infringe on their personal freedoms and threaten to destroy their livelihoods.
• Michigan state police prevent armed angry protesters from storming the chamber of the Michigan House of Representatives
• Minneapolis turning upside down after the death of George Floyd
• Members of the press covering protests being handcuffed and taken into custody during live broadcasts without any explanation
• SpaceX launching x2 NASA astronauts towards the international space station
• The Pentagon releasing UFO videos during a national emergency and no one cared

June 2020:

• BLM Protests ?
• Civil unrest ?
• Looting leading to an 8pm NYC Curfew
• People taking change into their own hands, toppling statues, burning Confederate flags and destroying other racist symbols all across America
• Peaceful protests in Washing DC Lafayette Park & police shooting rubber bullets, tear gas and flash bangs into the crowds
• A weird photo op of Donald and a bible, in front of a church
• Breonna Taylor’s story comes to light (from March 13) she was shot 8 times by police who broke into her house without a warrant.
• Wednesday is the same as June which is the same as 8pm
• The city has emptied, rents are down and the lights are off
• Have settled well into living in our tiny cocoon
• The hair color is diabolical, not joining work calls on camera anymore
• Millions of Americans are out of work, out of food, out of money and have no access to healthcare
• Atlanta’s demonstrators turn violent
• Continued practicing daily gratitude & yoga
• Gen Z pranked Donald during his campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
• Mark and Patricia McCloskey drawing their guns on protesters

July 2020:

• America starts talking about a “second wave” … not quite understanding that it’s still the first wave
• Covid explodes and peaks all over the country
• Reached my own personal threshold of dealing with my diabolical hair colour. Went to the chemist to buy packet hair dye and accidentally turned my hair orange.
• No united federal response… still.
• Continue to practice daily gratitude & yoga