As New York City reopens, life seems (a bit) more promising

The health crisis keeps reshaping life in New York. Beyond the headlines, members of our community share their first-person accounts on navigating the outbreak and life post-pandemic. Today, meet Elizabeth, from Australia. She reflects on the wide array of emotions she has felt, from the stay at home order in March to the reopening in late July

Now that we have reached summer, the days have grown longer, the streets have become busier, and stores and other businesses are continuing to open up, it’s almost hard to remember what truly dark and tortuous days we have been through. For a period of time, life was rather bleak, and grim. Sometimes I question whether it actually was as bad as I recall it being – a feeling I often have when I’m on the other side of a particularly challenging or arduous experience. I have been working on this piece for a while, because I’ve struggled to put into words all that I have felt, and thought, and perceived, over the last few months, about the life we currently lead, and what lies ahead for us, and that changes every day.

Every now and then, even still, after three months of this ‘new normal’, this current routine, I have moments of disbelief, where it doesn’t feel like real life, where it feels like we are characters in an apocalyptic film we watch for enjoyment because we never foresee it happening in real life. I think it’s because the virus has been so widespread, it isn’t just affecting a single community, a town, a country; anyone in the world could understand what you are feeling and thinking on some level, and share how they have personally been affected, too. This reality was strikingly familiar in a recent read of mine, The Plague by Albert Camus – which as the title suggests, documents the fictional lives of a town during a sweeping contagious virus – and is perhaps best expressed in the following lines:  “…once the gates were closed, they all noticed that they were in the same boat… This is how, for example, a quite individual feeling such as being separated from a loved one suddenly became the feeling of a whole people.” Camus excelled at articulating everything that I was feeling and thinking and experiencing at my time of reading, and this was quite powerful, and somewhat comforting, during such a unique time.

I am fortunate that I still have my job, I’m able to work from home, I can pay my rent, bills, and purchase groceries, and I know that this is not the case for so many. Because of this, at times, I have struggled with guilt over feelings of frustration about the current restrictions and regulations in place. Although I am aware of my privilege, at the same time, I have not been in my home country of Australia, or with my family – and I don’t know when I will be next – during a global pandemic, throughout some of New York City’s darkest days. That has been tough, and overwhelming at times, and often I don’t want to acknowledge that, because sometimes it’s hard to admit that your feelings are valid, when you put yourself in the situation that caused them. Of course I had the option to head home, and still do, although this is becoming increasingly difficult, with continuing flight cuts and a mandatory unpaid two-week quarantine in a hotel upon arrival. But I knew that it would be a big decision, to leave what I had built here. It’s not like I was vacating the city, or moving across the country. And, so somehow, in what was once the US epicenter of the virus, I never found enough reasons, or perhaps one big enough reason, to make it.

I’m in my early twenties, and for a long time, my dream was to move to New York. Something about the way it was portrayed in films and books, or the way it was spoken about by those who had visited or lived here, I wanted to be here, and at the beginning of last year, that became a reality. And while things look a little different now, I still want to be here. In this way, I think it’s justifiable to recognize that everything’s relative, and everyone’s feelings are valid; I just think it’s important to be aware of, and acknowledge, your privilege.

I have been filling my free time with plenty of reading, writing, listening to podcasts, ticking off classic films I had not yet seen, calls with family and friends back home, and sitting up on my rooftop, while taking in the abnormal quietness of the city, which is something I think I will miss when things return to ‘normal’. Looking downtown, I have a clear view of the World Trade Center, and uptown, the Empire State Building, and in between, my neighbors on surrounding rooftops exercising, sunbathing, socializing, and clapping and cheering for first responders at 7pm. I have appreciated having more time to spend doing these things, because we have been forced to stay inside, and have not had the ability to do anything else. Recently, I have spent more time out walking, and seeing friends in the city, appreciating the company of those other than my roommate, whom I had spent many long days with during lockdown in a small NYC apartment.

The uncertainty of how this will all play out prevents us from planning for the future, and so we don’t have things to look forward to, or work towards, which, at times, hinders my motivation and feelings of purpose. And while it’s completely justified and well-warranted to feel this way, it’s likely to be our way of living for quite some time, so I guess we can only accept the situation for what it is, and find a way to live with it. Perhaps, in light of this, it’s more important now than ever to really live in the moment, enjoy each day for what it brings and what we have; to appreciate the little things, and each other, because at the end of the day, when the city had shut down, and everything had closed, that’s really all we had.

The bars, restaurants, comedy cellars, and theatres that line my street closed down almost immediately when the city went into lockdown, and my neighbourhood lost a lot of its charm, and the reasons I had wanted to move here slowly started to slip away. I don’t know whether my decision to stay in New York was the right one, and I don’t know whether I would have been better off leaving, and I never will know; we only ever know the outcome of the path we choose to take, like in the 90s film Sliding Doors, where an act as simple as getting on a train, or missing it, offers two entirely different consequences. But, over the past few weeks, I’ve seen cafes and restaurants slowly start to open up, and New Yorkers are vacating their apartments for the streets; we’re slowly starting to pick up the pieces, and life here is looking a little bit more promising. We’ve still got a long way to go, and where that ends, or how we get there, no one knows, but we’ll get through it, just like we have so far.