From the Anthology
Pandemic Reflections: Five Years Later
I broke two personal records in 2020: Longest Amount of Time at a Single Job as an Adult (six years) and Longest Amount of Time at a Single Mailing Address as an Adult (also six years).
Would these have been broken had there not been a pandemic? Signs point to yes. Five years later, I find myself agreeing, more or less, with my ex-primary care physician. I’m not 28 anymore.
I have the same job, the same apartment, the same commute from bedroom to bathroom to kitchen to living room. The company I work for terminated its building lease and now offers a hoteling option for the handful of employees who can’t or won’t work from home. For my part, I bought a 34-inch monitor with a curved screen to match the curve of my kidney-shaped desk. On my ophthalmologist’s advice, I now wear special computer glasses that sharpen focus when I look up or down, but not straight. Many years ago, at a residency, I met an older writer who left early because he claimed he couldn’t work without his multi-monitor setup. At the time, I thought it sounded silly.
Having an 8-to-5 job doesn’t stop my downstairs neighbor from calling or knocking on my door during the day, usually with some gift of food brought from a friend or relative. Now in her mid-90s, she’s been retired for so long that time has transformed itself entirely. I wonder sometimes if I’ll ever know what that’s like.
I still have many reasons to be grateful every day, and not just because I’m a glass-half-full person by nature.
Nearly everyone I know has had COVID at some point. I’ve tested at least seven times over the past five years, and each test has come up negative. A different person might cite this as proof that COVID and the vaccines were nothing more than a conspiracy designed to institute some kind of mind control. I find myself depending on science more than ever now. If that’s another example of the “woke mind virus” at work, I’m happy to be so thoroughly infected in that way.
Each year, it’s become harder for me to function during the weeks of darkness that flank the winter solstice. On my therapist’s advice, I started taking extra vitamin D early in the fall. With the extra iron I now take, it’s easier to get out of bed in the morning. The iron addresses the restless leg syndrome, which, according to my sleep doctor, was one of the physical reasons why my sleep was so bad for so long. The other reason, sleep apnea, is why, for the first time ever, I have to travel with a wired machine.
Twice in the past five years I have taken very short trips to the Caribbean, where I spent most of the time lying on a sunbed knitting, reading, writing, and dozing off. The extra sunlight worked on me the way it does on every solar panel in existence: It supplied enough energy to power me through the winter.
And each year, spring arrives, as it always does. I find myself scanning the landscape for the forsythias, the maple trees’ green propeller seeds, and the lilacs, all of which imprinted themselves on me as a child growing up in Cleveland Heights. I know I need to walk more, and I do try, but my right knee is increasingly calling the shots, along with the tendon holding my right big toe to my foot.
Logically I know this isn’t about not being 28 anymore. It’s about not moving more, not sticking to a routine, not wearing the right footwear, not taking advantage of technology available at the CVS up the street, not listening enough to the experts despite my increasing reliance on science.
And this is where my father’s words make their way from my brain to my page: You make time for the things that are important to you.
Because he made the time to take his health seriously starting at age 50, he is still here nearly 35 years later. During these last five years, his body has begun betraying him in numerous ways, as all bodies do. It now contains enough hardware to get him special treatment in the TSA line, if he ever decides to fly again. Despite being rooted to earth, his mind is ever sharp, his vision ever clear, his words ever constant.
You’ll always be my baby.
Every night before I go to sleep, my cat climbs onto my upper leg. At one point she’d gained enough weight to concern the good folks at Shaker Heights Animal Hospital, but now, at 11 pounds and an estimated 11 years old, she is just enough. According to some online cat-to-human calculators, she and I are now the same age.
Typically, when she lies down on me, she orients herself so that we are both facing the partially closed bedroom door. If someone were to intrude, I have no doubt that she’d defend me to the best of her little black panther ability.
However, sometimes, when one or both of us are feeling anxious, she’ll walk up my body and lie on my chest so that our faces are only a few inches apart. Sometimes, when she’s that close, she’ll reach out and stroke my cheek with her paw.
Kecia Lynn is a native of Cleveland Heights and a graduate of Case Western Reserve University (BA English) and the University of Iowa (MFA fiction writing). She lives in University Heights and works as a manager for a multinational corporation.
