Fears In the Time Of Corona

I don’t think I am afraid of death.

What am I afraid of then?

Well, first, I am afraid of losing love.

Again, I should specify that this has nothing to do with death. It is the small ways we lose love. I am afraid of losing love in the form of hugs when I need them, or need to give them. I am afraid of losing that gentle weight of the hand on my back that tells me to keep holding on to hope. I am afraid of losing the kisses my mother sneaks upon me when I am in the kitchen making her afternoon tea. I am afraid losing the hand I shake of my father when he stays at work late because after every time he sends someone to pick me up because I hung out with my friends for too long, he waits for me to be picked up first. I am afraid of losing the feeling of running my hands in my brothers’ hair (or the lack of) when they come back home. I will miss slapping my friends playfully.

I will miss love as I have known it to be.

Second, I am probably afraid of losing my dreams.

I have put a lot of them on hold. Choked back some because they were choking me. Now it feels all suspended in vacuum. As if I shouldn’t dream. As if my dreams are as lost as me so we are “social distancing.” I am afraid of the things I will have to do to survive. I already hate myself for turning away patients. It makes me feel as though I am intentionally hurting someone when I don’t take their pain away. That’s what I do, no? I take pain away.  Who will I be if I can’t do that anymore?

Third, I am afraid of becoming a vessel of yearning.

Emotional adaptability at a pace at which I do it can leave gaps in how one sees the world. For me, the awareness of these gaps, knowing that I cannot do anything about it will be a challenge. I already vomit so many creative ideas about life and art, and flush them down the toilet. Right now, I am at a creative and intellectual anorexia. I fear I might be becoming bulimic with that part of my thoughts. Imagine. A life with all these ideas and all I can do is kill them.

So in short, no, I am not afraid of death. I am only afraid of who I will become, and if I will be able to live with that