I wrote this post back in May, towards the end of one of the most terrifying periods of my life. I wrote it, decided not to post it, and life went on.
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In my last year of college, there was this day I was supposed to present to the class on something. I can't remember what the topic was, but I remember the room, and the visual of my classmates sitting in one row, my favourite professor in her wheelchair, and me standing off on the side, holding my notes in my hand. For some reason, before I was to begin, the professor had started talking about the day her father died. And as she spoke, in her trademark matter of fact way, every single girl in the room started sobbing, except me. I stood there, wondering I wasn't crying like everyone else.
She finally turned to me, rolled her eyes, and complimented me for not crying like everyone else. And indicated I should begin. I started speaking, stopped, took a deep breath, started again, and then turned around, faced the wall, and sobbed my heart out, while my professor clucked exasperatedly behind me.
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Four years ago, the day after the garage incident, I walked into work, and went straight to a conference room to join my work BFF for our weekly call with our counterparts from a partner organization. The call had already started when I entered, so I gave a cheery "Hi!" as I sat down. Someone asked me a question, I started speaking, stopped, took a deep breath, started again, and somehow kept going. The call ended, and as I started gathering my things, my BFF looked at me and said, "ok, what's wrong?"
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That morning in May, a few months ago, we had a call with a team I hadn't spoken with in a few weeks. I listed out my agenda, and then before we could dive into the first issue, one of my coworkers piped up saying - before we start, just one other thing. Is your family okay?
I'd been living a nightmare for close to a month at that point, waking up every morning in terror, wondering what new names I'd hear that day. The weekends were the hardest, because there wasn't even work to distract me from my constant doomscrolling.
And at some point in the previous two weeks, a memo had gone out across America - check in on your Indian friends and coworkers. But somehow, this was the first time someone had done it on a public forum like this. So far, I'd gotten texts or messages, or been asked during one-on-one calls, all of which was appreciated and relatively easier to handle. But being asked on a call like this, while still appreciated, was just a bit startling. But I gave what had become my standard response to all of these inquiries, and kept going.
And then that afternoon, I had about ten minutes between calls, and decided to use it to glance at twitter a bit. I had consciously not looked at worldometers all day, due to some Big. Meetings. in the morning. But since I had ten minutes, I opened twitter, and this was the first tweet I saw.
414,000 new cases. Almost 4,000 new deaths. And you know those numbers were woefully, and criminally, undercounted and underreported.BREAKING: India has reported over 414,433 new coronavirus cases, the highest of any country since the pandemic began, and 3,920 new deaths.
— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) May 6, 2021
I saw this tweet, and dialed into my call, which was going to be my boss, her peers, and their boss. Started saying I was going to share my screen for the discussion, at which point it was helpfully pointed out I was on mute. I managed to unmute, share my screen, and started laying out what we needed to accomplish. And then it happened.
I started speaking, stopped, took a deep breath, started again, and the tears came gushing out. I kept presenting, speaking over everyone who was trying to say something, pretending like there's nothing strange whatsoever about a woman talking about aligning on a baseline forecast while she has tears streaming down her face. My coworkers on the call, bless them, realised I wanted to just get through it, and let me. I got IMs, some during, some after the call. Every single one of them telling to stop apologising for my meltdown.
I stopped apologising, but I really wished my brain would give me some indication of a forthcoming meltdown going forward.
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Things got better after that. They got much worse first, but they got better. The one person I was most terrified for during that period thankfully got through the summer, and is now mom to the cutest baby in the world. We all know there's another wave coming, but no one knows when.
I don't know why I'm finally posting this now, but for whoever is reading this, I do hope you and your loved ones are safe, and getting through this crazy time in history as best as you can.
