After the year we’ve had, it feels like we’re on the precipice of something. Our lives feel more fleeting. It’s time write these thoughts down somewhere.
After years of claiming I’m a writer, I believe it’s finally time to follow through. This blog will be the ultimate accountability partner as I recount how the past year, and other moments of my life, have broken and reshaped me.
2020 redefined isolation and freedom. I started the year living in a three generation household, itching to start the next chapter of my life. I thought I was isolated then because I was still living with my dad and grandma, tip-toeing around their expectations and hopes for me. (The ones I thought they had for me.) I thought freedom meant moving out, being able to see my boyfriend whenever I wanted, without worrying about needing to explain myself. Life was so much simpler then!
When the pandemic reached Cleveland everything stopped. Frozen in fear, or to be cautious, moving like molasses in the hopes that if we’re sweet everything will be alright. No one knew what to do, or how to move forward in their lives. After two months in limbo my panic set in. I was overwhelmed with anxiety that every time I left the house I could catch COIVD-19 and bring it home to my 81-year-old grandma. I didn’t see any of my friends. I went out for three reasons: to go to my office, to visit my boyfriend, and occasionally go to the store.
For more than two months I obsessively wiped down any surface I touched outside of my bedroom, frantically sanitizing the bathroom sink after brushing my teeth, wiping off light switches, doorknobs and remotes. Doing a little dance in a mist of Lysol when I first come home. I confined myself to my bedroom or the basement, and kept as far away from grandma as possible. The stress and solitude of being so close to someone but forcing yourself away became too much. So, in May, I decided it was time to move out. For the first time. And somehow, my father convinced me to go all in and invest in myself by buying a house.
The rest of the year was full of unexpected, sometimes funny, challenges that redefined what I thought isolation and freedom were. Today freedom means getting to go home to Grandma’s and spend time with my family (from a safe distance of course), and leaving my empty house. Freedom isn’t all about being able to raid the fridge without fear of judgement (or suspected judgement anyway), or your ability to leave your sweater out on the chair instead of hanging it up. Freedom isn’t just living without fear.
The fears of living alone weren’t what I thought they’d be. I keep myself accountable better than I thought I might. But I discovered isolation is a different kind of aloneness, not just something felt when you distance yourself. The isolation I’ve discovered has forced me to consider myself in ways I didn’t know I needed to. It’s true, the old saying about how you’re the one that will always be with you.
The rest of my blogs will follow my journey breaking and changing, starting off with 2020’s biggest moments: officially moving out for the first time, fixing up my first home, everything I realized, and all the damages along the way. I hope you’ll be entertained and connect with my little stories that consider the beauty that grew from things that seemed broken, or tried to break me.
-Margaret
Margaret Breaks 