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There's a big thought in my head I can't quite untangle yet, about all we're missing or yearning for right now. About how being disabled, an immigrant, and poor has prepared me but also how it's hitting me harder because of all those things.
I think of the Minnesota summer that won't be happening: no baseball, no state fair, maybe even no Up North vacations, and I'm sad about this even though I'm not usually there for that stuff. So I'm used to missing it and I have coping strategies for that but it's different when everyone's missing it. Another big immigrant mood I'm having now is that my boyfriend who's four miles away might as well be four thousand miles away. And I know because I've done four thousand miles away (and it was even worse then because it was before the constant contact smartphones can give us, before video calls).
Over the years I've missed a lot of events and experiences because I couldn't afford them. A part of the reason quarantine is difficult is it makes poor-people fun harder now that everyone can only do what we normally do -- go to the park rather than the pub, go for a walk rather than a meal out, etc. -- so sometimes we can't even do that. I'm missing charity shops and swapping stuff with friends, and other ways that people cope with being poor, but I'm also feeling some old familiar feelings of "not now, not this year, maybe next year..."
And being disabled means I'm used to a delicate balance of interdependence that has been totally upended. It was hard to escape dependence on my overprotective parents and a car-centered culture but I did it, only to find myself in another kind of dependence: my safety and well-being (not to mention that of my immunocompromised husband!) is now in the hands of people who aren't bothering to social distance any more because they're bored of it and there's only a limited amount I can do about that. Their choices affect me and I don't get consulted about them; I can't consent to the exposure they have decided is going to happen because I can't see well enough to effectively stay out of their way. Their ability overrides my impairment which means their choices win over my desires and again this is both familiar and frustrating as all hell.
I thought I'd write this from a snarky ironic "ha I'm actually so! well! prepared!" angle but I dunno. It feels overblown to call this trauma -- after all I'm not that poor, I have food and a house, and I moved countries as an individual decision made to improve my life rather than being displaced or diasporic -- but whatever it is I can't make the irony stick and anyway I'm already being encouraged on all sides to stop minimizing and making light of things is one of my favorite ways of doing that so maybe I'll just stop it here.
I think of the Minnesota summer that won't be happening: no baseball, no state fair, maybe even no Up North vacations, and I'm sad about this even though I'm not usually there for that stuff. So I'm used to missing it and I have coping strategies for that but it's different when everyone's missing it. Another big immigrant mood I'm having now is that my boyfriend who's four miles away might as well be four thousand miles away. And I know because I've done four thousand miles away (and it was even worse then because it was before the constant contact smartphones can give us, before video calls).
Over the years I've missed a lot of events and experiences because I couldn't afford them. A part of the reason quarantine is difficult is it makes poor-people fun harder now that everyone can only do what we normally do -- go to the park rather than the pub, go for a walk rather than a meal out, etc. -- so sometimes we can't even do that. I'm missing charity shops and swapping stuff with friends, and other ways that people cope with being poor, but I'm also feeling some old familiar feelings of "not now, not this year, maybe next year..."
And being disabled means I'm used to a delicate balance of interdependence that has been totally upended. It was hard to escape dependence on my overprotective parents and a car-centered culture but I did it, only to find myself in another kind of dependence: my safety and well-being (not to mention that of my immunocompromised husband!) is now in the hands of people who aren't bothering to social distance any more because they're bored of it and there's only a limited amount I can do about that. Their choices affect me and I don't get consulted about them; I can't consent to the exposure they have decided is going to happen because I can't see well enough to effectively stay out of their way. Their ability overrides my impairment which means their choices win over my desires and again this is both familiar and frustrating as all hell.
I thought I'd write this from a snarky ironic "ha I'm actually so! well! prepared!" angle but I dunno. It feels overblown to call this trauma -- after all I'm not that poor, I have food and a house, and I moved countries as an individual decision made to improve my life rather than being displaced or diasporic -- but whatever it is I can't make the irony stick and anyway I'm already being encouraged on all sides to stop minimizing and making light of things is one of my favorite ways of doing that so maybe I'll just stop it here.