At the beginning of quarantine, there was a weird sense of urgency from a lot of the people that I know

I think a lot of people in my generation experienced it through Instagram

People kept tagging others in random challenges

To keep in touch?

To let them know that they were thinking about them?

To let others know that they know people? 

Idk – I fell prey to some of these random challenges

It was an odd time.

What I didn’t fall prey to is the pressure of feeling like I needed to talk to other people

Maybe because there was a constant & sometimes overwhelming outreach from others

I didn’t have to do much of the work & in response to that, I didn’t respond

I would turn my phone off for 6-8 hours at a time

I would turn it on to find a ton of notifications.

Somedays, I didn’t get many notifications though & instead of feeling relieved, I would find myself feeling the opposite

Yet I retaliated the same way – I turned my phone off.

I realized that I’m in a very fortunate position where I can do that and know nothing and no one relies solely on me

I found myself stuck in that mindset for a while, and I didn’t start feeling like more of myself until recently

This piece is a representation of what my life really turned into during the start of the pandemic

There wasn’t any urgency –

and now I’m looking for one.