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We Don’t Have To Pretend Everything Is Fine
Maybe everything will be fine soon, but no, all is not well NOW.
I pace the 500 square meters garden once. Twice. Three times. I stop in the middle of the rectangular green patch surrounded by trees on all sides and look to my right. A neighbor from the third floor is watching me. I don’t care. I take a few more steps and push my shoe under the dirt to check how hard it is. Could I pitch my tent here? Maybe.
Six weeks of lockdown. Six weeks of living mainly on the balcony, finding joy in small things, of going back and forth between feeling fortunate and non-functional, of experiencing the now at full intensity. Each moment doesn’t exist as a concept anymore; it faded in between everything else.
I pace again. I walk in circles and feel the knot forming in my throat. It’s been there for a few days now. It comes from somewhere deep within myself and makes its way up through my esophagus then tries to settle. It’s sending me a signal. I acknowledge the blockage and send it back where it came from. It comes back stronger. I swallow again. I am an expert in pushing down my feelings. I’m a zoo animal trapped in a comfortable cage, allowed to do as I please as long as I don’t leave the perimeter assigned to me. And I may even enjoy it, if not for the damn knot.