That was the predictable part. The unpredictable part was who I would see and who I would engage with that night that would stretch on for hours. It could very well be a boring night. It could well be a night where I danced near the front of the bar or talked the night away with some of my favorite people or strangers I happened to meet and connect with.
Daylight hours during the weekend would find me at a bookstore or coffee shop, catching up on reading. On Sundays, I might wander the downtown streets, mentally preparing for the Monday to come.
And sometime that weekend, I might venture to the movie theater to either watch an explosion-filled, reality-escaping blockbuster or settle into quietly disturbing drama (I keep telling people I don't do animated movies).
Those days are gone, and I am in mourning. More than a month a stay-at-home order was imposed, and nearly two months after restaurants and bars were shut down, the grief over what has vanished seemingly overnight comes at me in waves.
The escape hatches are gone. The places where I sought refuge from the world are closed. Not all of them, of course. I have access to wine. I can Netflix and chill. I still have a job.
But the moments of spontaneity -- those fleeting times where I didn't know where the night would take me -- are hard to find these days. Those nights where I had a plan and that plan was disrupted by seeing a friend and that friend and I would talk and dance for hours, sweating out our stress and leaving it on the dance floor. The nights where I would yammer about religion and politics and religion and books over wine while old-school R&B played in the background of some bar. The nights when one certain friend would send out the Bat signal and we would head to where he was on the music and we would lose our minds until 2 in the morning.
Moments like that don't last forever, but you never think they would stop being possible all of a sudden. You never thought that your nights, as predictable as they could be, would become so predictable because you're limited in where you can go and what you can do.
My nights are now confined to my apartment, and it's not the same.
I am practicing cautious optimism. I'm telling myself that everything will be okay, even as the news doesn't give you much to be optimistic about. My faith tells me that it is about what I can't see and not what I can see that I should hang my hopes on.
Still, I am in mourning.
I haven't hugged or kissed anyone in more than a month and it hurts not to have that. Hurts not to be able to put your arm around someone. One of my friends would hug me hard every time he saw me. I have another friend who would hold my hand. She loves touching the people she loves. And now we can't touch.
I am luckier than others. I have found glimmers of hope. I've texted people and called people. Because of my job, I still go into the office and cover things. My job has kept me busy, and I have a job when others I know don't.
I know I have certain privileges than others, and the stresses I have don't match the ones others have.
It doesn't change the fact that this is hard. And it will continue to be hard, even though I know at least for now, this is necessary to save as many lives as possible.
I try to remember that the future is not set in stone. It never was. I can't bank on either a best-case scenario or a worst-case scenario. This will play out exactly as it plays out. And I have to believe that there is an other side to this. You just have to take it one day at a time.
And one day, I will get back to those nights that were a blur and cherish them even more.
