by Alexandra Carmichael
I’m trapped in my apartment with a woman who I’m not particularly fond of. We’ve been quarantined together for two months. My dislike has spread like a rash, small and ignorable at first but now it keeps me up at night. This woman is inconsiderate. She leaves at least three half-empty mugs of tea around on a daily basis. She picks fights over ridiculous things. Like when the bread is moved from the counter into the fridge where it will lose its freshness. Minor infractions send her into an insecurity spiral. A work email that is anything less than manically enthusiastic, an unanswered question on Slack, a canceled Zoom date with a friend. This woman doesn’t do any of the things she says she will. Instead, she haunts the apartment in sweatpants moaning and groaning like a Dickensian ghost. I am exhausted by her.
This woman is quarantine me.
It turns out that when all of life’s trimmings disappear—the weekend plans and the cute outfits and the friends and coworkers—all I’m left with is this needy, self-conscious version of myself. It’s actually a relief that no one but my husband is around to witness it.
I am privileged enough to have been stuck at home for weeks and weeks, and it’s brought me into this absurd horror movie where my fragile, fumbling teenage self has taken over. I thought I was rid of her. She was supposed to be stuck wandering the halls of a Western-New-York high school circa 2007. She was never meant to infiltrate my Brooklyn apartment, yet here she is.
All of the emotional progress and internal work I’ve clawed my way through over the last decade has been wiped out. It didn’t take much. I have to stay in my fairly nice apartment with my lovely husband all day, every day. Boo-hoo. I haven’t suffered any personal tragedy. My loved ones remain employed and physically healthy, although most are as depressed as I am. I’ll look back on this as the time that everyone, everywhere was depressed at once. Another decent horror movie concept.
I wish it were different, that after all the external, impermanent nonsense was stripped away I’d have the freedom to find my authentic self. This can’t be her, right? This bottomless pit of anxiety and doubt? Is that really all there is down there?
A few weeks ago, I went to the closest grocery store, a corner market no larger than a 7-Eleven. It was my first trip outside in two weeks apart from the short, forced walk I took every few days. Adorned with a surgical mask and rubber gloves, I stood in one of the store’s three narrow aisles looking for the right kind of boxed mac and cheese. My hands were sheathed in sweat. I should have waited to put on the gloves until after the twenty-minute walk. The lower half of my face was moist from my own recycled breath.
A man my age in a black mask entered the aisle. We both turned sideways, flat against opposite shelves so he could scoot by awkwardly. This happened two more times. One of us would enter an aisle already occupied by the other. Eye contact, awkward scoot, repeat. When we inevitably entered the checkout line at the same time, he motioned for me to go first. I nodded. Outside the store, the man and I both rearranged our groceries into backpacks and tote bags. We made eye contact, nodded. I imagine we both smiled under our masks. The man turned right at the corner and I turned left.
A few steps later, I was so overcome with emotion that I had to stop and choke back a sob. This banal interaction left me gutted, and as I walked back home I tried to figure out why. The only explanation I’ve come up with is that I recognized something that I didn’t even know I was missing, some essential joy that I hadn’t felt in two months. It’s not simply human connection. That’s too easy, too wholesome. The thing I’d truly been starved of, that I’d felt a tiny wisp of outside the grocery store, was validation.
I am a validation junky. Nothing sends me into a delicious, floaty, out-of-body experience like praise from someone I admire or a group of people laughing at my joke. Alas, my drug of choice is in very short supply right now. No one is asking me to hang out over the weekend, no one is complimenting the shirt I’m wearing or telling me I’m doing well at my job. I wish I didn’t need these things so much. My poor husband—in the midst of his own inner crisis—is left to provide what dozens of friends, family and colleagues once did. An impossible task.
There are also the invisible, routine validations that I never even noticed before. A nod from a neighbor, a glance from a guy on the subway, the glint of recognition from a barista. These things tell me that I am accepted, that I’m seen. Now I find myself glancing at my own face in Zoom every five minutes looking for a fix—am I still there? Do I still look pretty? Do I still exist?
Until now I’ve done a fabulous job pretending I don’t have this need, that I’m above it. I wear makeup, but not too much; dress well, but not too well, all to keep up the ruse that I’m not trying too hard. Now I’m coming face-to-face with this need, and I don’t much care for what I see.
Maybe other people are discovering the best versions of themselves during all this, versions who volunteer and sew masks and learn new languages. According to a Tweet I glimpsed about an article that I never clicked on, this couple was in the middle of a divorce when shelter-in-place started. They have since fallen back in love and will remain married. At first, I assumed this man and woman had rediscovered the best versions of themselves while stuck inside. They shared all the chores and ate dinner together every night and listened to one another’s fears. But maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe they saw the worst versions of each other, stared them in the face, and nodded.
The day will come when I finally emerge from my sweatpants, put on a flowery dress and order an overpriced cocktail at a bar inhabited by other humans. Will those other humans be wearing masks? Will the bar I have in mind still exist? Will I ever shake another person’s hand again? I have no clue. What I do know is that the moaning, insecure woman will still be there, always. She’s not high school me or quarantine me. She’s just me. Maybe instead of ridiculing her I should give her a hug, get to know her better over a glass of wine, and remind her she’s doing the best she can.
Alexandra Carmichael lives in Brooklyn. She writes in the mornings and evenings around her full-time job writing for tech companies. She earned a BA in English from Binghamton University.