July 9, 2020
We were finally doing it—my partner and I were making a big life change! We were moving to a new city, to a new country. I quit my job. We gave notice to our landlord. We booked a moving van. We renewed our passports. And we booked tickets for our dream trip to Latin America, to happen before our move. We were leaving! First on an amazing five-week trip, then home for two weeks to pack up all of our possessions, have one last house party, and pursue our dreams.
I was so excited to move. I had waited years to quit a job I despised, and I had always wanted to live in a new city, and especially a different country. I would look at apartment listings dreamily, and spend nights researching neighbourhoods we would want to explore, or activities I would sign up for to make new friends. And then of course there was our backpacking trip first, for which I was ecstatic. We were days from leaving, I couldn’t stop talking and thinking about it, and the momentum of our life changes was at an all-time high.
Expected departure date: Sunday, March 16th, the day before Ontario entered lock-down. The week before was a crazy, unforgettable week. For one, it was my last week at the office, which meant hectically wrapping up all my projects and trying to find time to train my replacement, let alone pack and make last minute trip preparations. For two, the WHO had just announced that the coronavirus was officially a pandemic.
There was non-stop coverage of its spread, Canadian health officials were making announcements daily, and people couldn’t stop talking about it. Friends and family kept asking if we were still planning on going on our trip. Of course we were still going, how ridiculous, I thought, since when did everyone become so fearful. Anyway, I was extremely busy with my last week at work, I barely had to time to think about that. All I could focus on was wrapping up my last week and packing!
On my second last day at the office, I had to do a major, televised presentation for a city council outside Toronto, and it was a huge success. I had despised this job, had despised the company and the toxic environment of my colleagues, and was so happy it was finally finished—both the presentation and the job itself. I felt elated. My colleague and I drove home together, talking about COVID and listening to the coverage on CBC. As we listened, my elation quickly fell to panic, fear, and anxiety. Free from the stress of the presentation and the hectic week, it finally set in. Travelling abroad seemed like very, very risky. And were supposed to be leaving in three days.
Friday, the 13th: I spent my last day at the office researching the pandemic. Number of cases, spread rates, border closures, quarantines. I stared endlessly at WHO maps of the virus. Trudeau seemed to be making announcements by the hour now. I couldn’t keep up with the coverage. I was overwhelmed. His foreign affairs minister recommended Canadians not travel at all and should return immediately if abroad. It felt so surreal. It was so surreal.
After work, I rushed to U of T to hit the tail end of my partner’s last day work drinks. But when I got there, it was a very different atmosphere than I expected. Everyone kept saying how excited we must be to travel and enthusiastically asking for details of our trip, to which my partner responded with just as much excitement. I smiled and nodded along, but internally I was horrified—both at everyone’s assumption that we were still travelling and my partner’s utter denial, despite the dozens of links I had been sending him all day. I had done a 180 since yesterday morning, and foolishly I had expected everyone else to have done the same thing. Clearly my partner had not.
As we walked home from the pub a few hours later, I exploded with worry and fear. We had to cancel, I shouted. No, he said, we are healthy and young, there are less than 10 total cases in the countries we were visiting, worst case scenario we stay in a nice Airbnb for two weeks if we get symptoms and then carry on with our trip as planned. But I knew it would get a lot worse before it would get better, and we were set to leave in two days; we had to make a decision now. So after about an hour of hysterical crying on my part, he finally started to hear, to accept it. He cried. We both cried, but we called off the trip. We weren’t going.
We spent the weekend on hold with airline companies, trying to get refunds on our cancelled flights (we got nothing). Between calls, we feverishly read news coverage about the global spread, what Ontario and the feds were planning, or what we might expect from Italy and Spain. Symptoms. Likelihoods. Risk factors.
For days, and even weeks, I felt like a swinging pendulum. Some moments I felt so relieved we had canceled our trip (the countries we were planning to visit had closed their borders and canceled all incoming and outgoing flights!) I couldn’t believe our luck; we could have left a few days earlier and been stranded there, or we could have been in denial and taken off anyway as planned. By a close miss, we had dodged what would have surely been a total nightmare. But at the other end of the pendulum’s swing, I felt completely panicked. Holy shit, we were in a global pandemic, a pandemic worse than anything in 100 years—way worse. What if things broke down, what if law and order crumbled, what if people were so sick that basic services were shut down, like water, or telecommunication. Internet! What if we were at the beginning of a massive, societal breakdown. Was this the beginning of the end?????
But it was also a bit fun. I felt so energetic (although extremely anxious), and so did everyone else. Everyone started “zooming” left right and centre, and everyone wanted to hang out online. We would all laugh, giggle, play and dance online together, downing whole bottles of wine and smoking joints together on zoom. I also felt so damn loved. Everyone was reaching out, everyone was so supportive, everyone was propping each other up. People were reaching out to me and my partner asking how we were doing with everything, and we were doing the same to all of our friends. And suddenly, we had endless time—my partner and I spent every morning drinking coffee and doing crosswords in our sunny kitchen, I had tons of time to do things I love like walking or cooking, and I started falling in love with yoga. And I was so grateful we were healthy and safe, and so was everyone we knew.
Anyway, we still had our move to think about! We were still going to move to a new city! We went back to looking at apartments online, planning moving logistics, and thinking about our next chapter. My partner had emailed his future boss asking if perhaps, since we weren’t travelling anymore, maybe he could start in April and we could move earlier instead of waiting for May 1st.
But, of course, the US-Canada border closed. It was first closed for 30 days, but was later extended an additional 30 days, until June 21st, and now, indefinitely. And I feel like I’ve been hurled at a wall. Smash into a solid wall going 200 km/hr. Preparing for major change takes so much stress and sacrifice and energy and then to suddenly have the momentum cut short is difficult, and at times excruciatingly painful.
We are still planning to go immediately once the border opens. But the energy, and excitement, and action is gone. I lazily check covid numbers or stare out the window. Nobody asks how I’m coping anymore. People make comments about how I shouldn’t even want to move to the US, since it’s clearly so messed up anyway, a little jab to an already open wound. And every day I just wait for it to end, wait for the day to finish and watch the clock and wait, and I’m relieved when it’s finally bedtime.
I wait.
I wait to be less frightened.
I wait to have a normal life back.
I wait to move to our new city and continue with our dreams and ambitions.
I wait in a grocery store line with a face mask.
I wait to have energy again, to have excitement again.
I want to be enthusiastic about moving to our new city again.
I wait for my partner to be finished work, so I can finally add someone to my lonely, monotonous day. I wait to feel motivated to do the hobbies that I love.
I wait to join the rat race again. I wait for a stressful job again, wait for a terrible work life balance again. I wait to be too busy to do anything I actually want to do.
-Anonymous Contributor #8
The author of this post has chosen to remain anonymous. I have assigned a number to each contributor who opts to remain anonymous. This is so readers have a sense of the number of different contributors that are involved in this continuously growing community.