Ever wake up and feel like you’re in a bad movie?
Over the last few years, that feeling has only grown for me.
It all started when Trump became president.
The morning after was one of the worst days ever. I had never felt such a sense of defeat and hopelessness as I had on that ominous day. It was like being in the part of a movie where the bad guys win, only this bad guy wasn’t going anywhere for at least 4 years…
That’s the thing with movies. They usually only last up to 2 hours, and by the end, the “bad guys” have been subdued and the “good guys” are back in business. At most, you leave the movie with a sense of catharsis.
That’s what makes it scary when life feels like a movie — you don’t have the pleasure of knowing when things will get back to normal, or even if they will. You miss out on that immediate relief you feel when the movie wraps the ending up in a Tiffany box with a pretty bow on top, otherwise known as the denouement.
Once the shock of Trump’s win dwindled, my next dose of doomsday came from our climate crisis.
There were days I literally just stopped and thought: What are we all doing? How is that girl just casually posting so many instagram stories? Why are people traveling? Why should I bother buying anything I like when I may not be around long enough to use it? Why are we planning our future? Why bother having kids? Why don’t others seem as concerned? What’s. The. Point.
And just when you think you’re beginning to get a grip on one piece of bad news, another, more immediately-threatening one is added to the pile.
Enter COVID-19.
If our world were a Jenga structure, the coronavirus is merely someone moving one of the blocks by a smidge; one slight action and the whole thing collapses.
In a matter of a week, our world turned upside down and we entered uncharted territory. We went from having the freedom to shop, dine out, travel, go to work, go to school, see friends or family, attend events, and go to the gym to being complete homebodies.
You’d think certain generations would thrive under these circumstances, namely the Millennials and Gen Z-ers, who grew up with technology as their main source of entertainment, but from the looks of it, I’d say it’s the opposite.
Take away our option to go out, and suddenly, that’s all we wish to do.
I’m not going to lie, once I started seeing fewer people on the streets, the increasing number of cases, the anxiety-ridden anchors on CNN, and people panic-buying at grocery stores like it was the apocalypse, scenes from I Am Legend started flashing before my eyes, which didn’t help me feel like less of an actress in a movie.
Movie analogies aside, it’s clear that the virus has had a toll on practically every aspect of life, but in some ways, it might be exactly what we needed.
Although in an unfortunate way, this pandemic has served as a barometer for how we’re doing as a society and species. It has exposed what desperately needs to be changed — our healthcare system, our politics, our perception of which jobs are valuable, our treatment of others, and our evermore divided population.
Let this experience humble us and remind us of what is important at the end of the day: family, friends, food, water, and shelter.
May we never take these things for granted again.