What’s most important to you right now? 

Connecting with my partner who I live with. Connecting with people. Being in touch with my friends and family. Finding ways to reach out and feel not alone in my thoughts and in my anxieties and stresses. Needing to connect with people to come out of the haze of terror and dread that I’m kind of constantly in. 

What was most important to you before you had to social distance? 

My life was disrupted before this all started, but I guess what was most important was well-being. Feeling well in myself, making sure the people that I love are well, and being able to be 100% myself in health, to be able to be a functioning human in the world.

What’s the first thing you’ll do when this is over? 

I want to have tons of people into our home. I want to make a bunch of dips and I want people to dip their chips all at the same time into a big artichoke dip or something. I want to be sharing food in a group of people I love. 

What are you doing to pass the time? 

I’m exercising a lot. More than I usually do. I think it’s a control thing. If I can’t have my normal life, I can at least do something physical every day. It makes me feel good and it helps pass the time. I’ve also taken up embroidery. Cooking a lot. Eating a lot.

What makes you happy right now?

Being connected to people. Being able to have FaceTimes or Zooms. Having small, quiet moments with my fiancé. Just being close makes me happy.

What would you tell yourself two months ago with the knowledge you have today? 

I think I would tell myself to slow down, but hold on to every experience, every smell, every taste. No need to rush through life, but take it all in and hold it. Not being able to feel fully in the world makes me feel like a different version of myself; like I’m lost from myself. Feeling gratitude for any and every experience. I would have said that. 

I’m still discovering how to define productivity. Where do I put the value in what I do with my time and why? Some days I am doing a lot but I feel like “what does it mean? What does it matter?” I’m trying to come to terms with what I value and why, and how that defines who I am. I definitely feel confused within it. 

Molly M-Brooklyn

DAY 42