By Victoria Iparraguirre, Manhattan School of Music, LiveGirl Social Media Intern
“And for one last moment, everything was so glamorous and cool.”
The last memory I have of pre-pandemic life was the night my school let out for spring break. My dear friend Maia and I were going out to get late night diner food, and while I was excited, I couldn’t shake this nagging feeling that something didn’t feel right.
“I don’t know Schmoo, I just feel like something is going to happen.”
I wrote it off as just a random thought and carried on. We had a wonderful time that night, and said our goodbyes – we couldn’t wait to regroup in two weeks! Then my family and I were off to Boston to celebrate my 20th birthday (this was that week when toilet paper and cleaning supplies were worth their weight in gold), and since we thought everyone was overreacting we joked that we went to Massachusetts just to get cleaning alcohol. And after that? Time stopped. I can only remember the constant, helpless feeling I would have in my chest. News of everything closing, the hysteria of not knowing what was going to happen, the death tolls rising – it was all so much. I distracted myself with hours of scrolling through TikTok which made me feel less alone – other people my age from all around the world going through the same thing I was, and all trying to normalize the absurdity through creative humor. In between the low moments there were also lots of funny ones – like the time my family and I drank a little too much wine and attempted to have a Bob Ross painting night, or when we were so desperate for good news that when our neighbor discovered a wild strawberry growing by our fence we all marveled at it like he had discovered the fountain of youth. And yet – I still couldn’t shake the feeling that something bigger was going to happen.
“No Pa, I’m telling you – something bigger than us is coming.”
Each time I’d express this, we would brush it off as overall uncertainty, but then in the blink of an eye it was June, and my TikTok feed was full of graphic content from Black Lives Matter protests from all over the nation. I couldn’t just sit at home and do nothing when fellow human beings were suffering – so I didn’t. Every chance there was, my mother and I would show up with our signs and fists raised, and I finally felt myself becoming familiar with that feeling in my chest. It kept us safe by keeping me hyper-aware of my surroundings while marching, let me know when it was time to stop scrolling through TikTok, and most notably drove me to make a change not only in a political sense, but also a personal one.
Running – which I had been doing since March, suddenly became more than just exercise. It was my lifeline, the sacred time I had to sort out my thoughts while moving at the same speed as them. I could finally rest at night, I began making healthier lifestyle choices. Being a part of the inaugural SHEWORKS cohort helped me re-discover a world of possibilities, the LiveGirl community rejuvenated hope. I reached out for help and learned that what I was dealing with was an anxiety disorder.
All the extra time I had on my hands was transformed into time working on and bettering myself, and resolving old inner demons and conflicts. I tamed the lion that was my overwhelming anxiety, and while it is and always will be wild in its nature, one year later the lessons I have learned living life through this pandemic help put everything into perspective when my thoughts get the best of me. I and my mental health are my first priority. Family and friends are power. I am not alone, and we truly are “all in this together.”
