When Tomorrow Comes: Putting My Life Back Together After COVID-19 By Tragorian Sconiers
By all accounts and metrics, the year 2020 will leave an indelible mark on our collective consciousness. From the untimely death of basketball legend Kobe Bryant and his young daughter in January to discussions about literally canceling Christmas, we were clutched with a crisis of global significance: COVID-19. Not since the AIDS pandemic had we been taken by sheer surprise and been so wholly unprepared to respond. Millions were affected by the pandemic, but none more so than the hundreds of thousands of people who lost their lives. Loved ones looked on helplessly as they said goodbye, often by video chat because they were not permitted to visit them in the hospital. Funeral and memorial services had to be held virtually. Even after the alarming rate of lives claimed by COVID-19, there were still deniers that the virus existed. Mask mandates, shutdowns, safe distancing, and vaccines became hotly debated topics. Unfortunately, those last examples became uniquely United States problems. Mask usage and vaccinations were all too often divided down political party lines. The entirety of 2020 saw us plunged into chaos, trying desperately to claw our way to what would be considered our “new normal.” At the onset of the year, things were progressing well for me. Having moved back to my hometown of Orlando after a few years in Austin, Texas, I was working at a daycare and was about to move into a new home. I, too, kept apprised of the news about a virus making its way to our shores. In May, I got the keys and was very excited to move in. I booked a flight back to Texas in order to retrieve my belongings and start a new chapter in my life. That is exactly what happened, but it was not the chapter I envisioned. A week before I was to board the plane, I developed a cough. The cough was innocuous enough at first but progressed rather quickly into a fever and body TCP Magazine Fall, 2023 • Page 10
