Sunday Stories: The Adjustment  

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major adjustments in our lives as students, artists, employees, family members, but most importantly as human beings. We all come from different walks of life, though these conditions bring us together more than ever before. This blog presents some of the lived experiences from people in our community, adjusting to what many consider as the “new normal”. Enjoy!

Olubusayo, 23, DMV

The Table by Olubusayo Shabi

We used to have a dining table. It was very old but it carried a lot. I am not sure when my parents bought the table, but I know it predates my existence. The table moved states with my family and I, elevated with us from renting to buying, and watched my sisters and I grow from children to adults. But now the table is gone, it couldn’t stand any longer.

 Sometimes that table would annoy me. It would wobble and shake and it felt like at any moment the table would collapse.

I asked my parents so many times “why can’t we just get a new table?” Instead of replacing the decades-old table, my dad would respond by tightening the screws and hammering the nails back into place. Eventually, the table became so fragile that it couldn’t fulfill its main role anymore and my sisters and I would eat elsewhere. But without fail, my dad would still eat at the table. 

The day the table collapsed was the same day my family laid my father to rest and I know that cannot be a mere coincidence. The chairs still sit in my dining room and there’s an impression making a border as if the table is still there, but it is clear that there is something missing.

It’s been a little over two months since my dad died which is about the same time that we have all been stuck in quarantine, missing something. For me, I miss my dad and as crazy as it sounds, I miss the normalcy that the table once gave me.

Imara, Toronto

I’ve always said my problem with (young) adulthood is how constant it is, but I never imagined it would just…stop. I’m a full-time film student in a busy city, so that means a lot of my days start before the sun wakes up and end long after it’s clocked out again. All my time is spent in class or downtown, so I’m always surrounded by busyness and movement. All that, plus having a part time job and freelancing means my designated free time is taken too. Naturally I’ve been figuratively dying for a break, but this isn’t exactly what I meant. The first few days of quarantine were bizarre. It felt like reading the first few pages of a dystopian book, where everything slowly starts going left. Like, I saw the lockdown tweets and thought “oh this is BAD bad, huh?” I bounced back and forth between existential dread and limitless optimism that people would do their part and we’d all be out by May. After that dream died, all I had was existential dread. I tried to distract myself with YouTube rabbit holes, Sims 4 and creative projects I had pocketed during a stressful semester, but they all became sources of further anxiety for me. Okay so, I watch a lot of political satire stuff like Patriot Act and Last Week Tonight. One episode of the latter was taped in an all-white bunker-looking room without an audience. It looked like a PSA from said bunker and watching it almost gave me a panic attack.  I decided to take a break from everything and slowly train myself into having guilt-free unproductive days. I changed the way I looked at being stuck inside to be less of a sign of the end times and more of an uncomfortable but necessary step to fixing an unfamiliar problem. There are no deadlines, so I have nothing to panic over if I spend 3 hours looking at nothing. I try to spend more time breathing and actually using the time I begged for to rest, pray and live at my own pace.  I still get anxious sometimes knowing there are a lot of people who don’t get the luxury of enjoying this worldwide timeout and need help. That bothers me a fair bit, but if the best way to help fix this is to stay my ass at home, and offer help where I can, then I’ll focus on that instead.

Tahirah, 28, NYC/London

The good homies call me Tea but most days I go by Tahirah. I’m a 28 year old New York native living across the pond somewhere in London town, for now at least. Almost two months ago I completed a course in software engineering and was toying with the idea of leaving the U.K. for the summer. My options were to either move back to the city or hang out in Johannesburg with friends. Of course I chose stability over “going with the flow”, moving back to the city just made more sense. If I didn’t just finish this course I would have totally gone with the latter. But hey, we move. 

So it’s my last week of class and my career advisor is getting me accumulated with the job search. At this point, precautions were in full effect but the silly Prime Minister was still being indecisive on when to lock down the country. And I don’t know…I still can’t describe my initial feeling. It's like my life changed within days. My flight got canceled twice, the outbreak was growing rapidly over in America, and everything was at a stand still. I went through waves of discomfort (still do) knowing that I’m being restricted to travel, there’s so much uncertainty in landing my first developer role, and I am also 100 miles away from my family. 

Quarantine certainly broke me for the first two weeks and my anxiety was through the roof. It only took me one day after those 14 for me to catch myself though. I now take adjusting to this new norm and isolation day by day. Allowing myself to just be. I now welcome the unknown and have become much more inviting to what my new journey in tech may look like. Being home now opens me up to merging who I am as a creative producer and who I am becoming as a cool nerd. I kind of sort of like it here. For now.

Janïsa, Toronto

Since this pandemic ensued, working from home for me means I need to create a method to get into my ‘new normal’ routine. It’s an adjustment. My sleeping patterns are unchartered these days and I am eating more. Not junk food, but just eating to satiate myself while I figure out this weird existence now. I am a mother of 2 teenagers, their time is split (one week on, one week off) with their dad and continues during all of this which gives me a breather. I run a cleaning business that has taken a full stop. I am a singer, songwriter, performance artist who also sings at weddings and corporate events, which have also been put on pause until this washes over. Toronto is home and thankfully the gods told me to go to Jamaica for vacation with a friend in early March before quarantine became mandatory for anyone who travelled outside of the country. 

In times like these, the internet really saves you if you allow it too. Even with constant wifi, intermittent fasting from the net is in order as everybody and their cat is on it more these days. I get it, with the big pause we are starved for connection. It has put into perspective what is really important to us and what we have taken for granted perhaps. It’s a time of introspection, reflection and figuring out if we may not have been as prepared for an apocalypse as we thought we were. Being caught on the blindside of a global pandemic, really forces us to create a new vision. One thing I can say is this pause has afforded me more creative time. When you are not chasing but living day by day, less is taken for granted.

Eneni, London

As a free-spirited person and your stereotypical extrovert, enforced confinement and self-distancing away from family and friends has not been easy to say the least. For the first 2 weeks of lockdown, I was exhausted, frustrated and extremely bored. 

After waking up at 2pm, sleeping at 7am several nights, and watching every tweeted about show I could find, I woke up one day and decided enough was enough. 

With no date for when this viral outbreak could be eradicated, I realized this time at home could possibly become our norm for the next couple of months. How long would I repeat this cycle of mediocrity? And what kind of person would I be mentally and physically, when all of this is over?

I decided to create a routine for myself. Nothing too fancy or strict, just a basic structure for the week to get me more proactive and optimistic. Laundry on Sundays, jog every 2 days, that kind of thing. Next I needed to think about how I was going to stay busy and also earn money as I recently became a freelancer. I sat down and asked myself important questions like:

•What skills do I have that I could use to make income from home? 

Web design and App development. As a new freelancer, I knew I needed to get clients so I began to advertise what I could offer on all my social networks.

•What things have I always wanted to do or learn but maybe not had time for?

Mandarin, Japanese, French. I now had time for it! I made a list of every skill I wanted in order of priority and spent a minimum of an hour a day for the top 5 on my list.

•What are three things that I’m grateful for everyday?

It’s more than important to stay positive during this time. Yes it feels like a lot is out of our control but the fact that you are able to read this right now is in itself a blessing. Food, sight, family, and even things we overlook like the internet. Once I really thought about the people who are social-distancing just like me but in poverty or are homeless, it really put things into perspective how things could be a lot worse.

Although you may feel anxious right now, there is still a lot within our own control. Remember we’re all in this together, feeling exactly the same way as you, you’re not alone. Make sure you stay connected with friends and family, stay positive, be active and try tackle a new project! 

What skill have you always wanted to learn?