I never had to wear a mask and other confessions

In March 2020, COVID-19 hit the Pacific. Borders closed overnight and flights were halted. Along came lockdown and I lived pretty much spent that within the confines of my small apartment. My idea of outside was blowing bubbles in my balcony.

In about 2 months, community transmission was contained and with delight, newspapers announced Fiji as COVID-free. We returned to office as if it were 2019. Yes, there was a bit of a looming threat, a sense of trepidation in the air and there was more sanitizer than water in meeting rooms but outside of that, people moved around like in the ‘normal’ world.

Normal says who

Meanwhile, my friends and families in India lived with constant worry. I heard stories of my parents sanitizing coins in their purse after buying vegetables or the elevator button after using it. Stepping out was associated with all kinds of fear and dread and new rituals of sanitizing and cleaning dominated the lives of my loved ones.

I didn’t experience the fear of contracting COVID-19 but I agonized over a different kind of uncertainty. I worried for my family. Knowing them, I knew that it could not be easy for my 60-year-old parents to spend time in a closed space with only the television and each other for company. My mother laughed off my worries and shared all her new skills that she has acquired through YouTube and my father called this time an internship for retirement. But I could feel the muted stress of every interaction they had with the outside world. Each moment of grace was laced with panic and anxiety. They carried the heavy burden of uncertainty and unprocessed grief from neighbors passing away.

I would hear their stories of which relative contracted COVID and what part of my neighborhood was marked as a containment zone. I could only listen and nod and sympathize. I can imagine how things must have unraveled but then I can’t. I watch twitter updates as if it is a dystopian show. Who are these people? What are they feeling? How do I relate? They craved normalcy. I had it but it felt bizarre to be normal. Like I had been left behind.

FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and how

I have never worn a mask. I haven’t sanitized vegetables and I certainly don’t flinch when someone offers to shake my hand. While all that sounds desirable to many, I feel like the world has moved to another paradigm and I can’t catch up. The lives of my loved ones have been fundamentally changed and I wasn’t there to help or even witness.

This isn’t just about COVID-19. It was about everything else and the COVID-19 induced exacerbation of social and economic realities. People the world over were in the streets protesting for basic rights from India to the United States to Hong Kong to Nigeria. There is global solidarity and recognition of our shared commitments towards fundamental rights. Along with social movements, people came together to help each other through political action and mutual aid projects. And yes, it’s odd to say but I feel so much FOMO. I feel cheated of my moment of solidarity with the world, cheated of who I could have become in response to it.

Every time I mention this strange longing or yearning to someone, they tell me I am so lucky to be ‘stuck’ in tropical paradise. And they are right. I feel fortunate. Fiji, the country, its people have inspired and grounded me in so many ways. I am swimming in gratitude. And that being true, I am also holding mild regret of not being there for those that I love, to hold them and be held.

Learning to sit with it

It has been a full year now since the borders closed. Lockdown made me crave the gentle comfort of camaraderie which I found online through Liberating Structures. That deepened my journey into complexity and how humans relate to each other. With online training opportunities proliferating, I got a chance to deepen my systems practice through the use of Cynefin, Human Systems Dynamics, Warm Data Lab, Deep Democracy and Empathy Circles. 

It has been a beautiful year of several aha moments. It has been nourishing for my soul and stimulating for my mind. I found ways to reframe and restructure my thinking with language to describe what I intuitively believed but hadn’t found the words to express or validate. This silver lining is so thick that its almost contains the cloud.

 My appreciation of complexity is helping me bear witness to my changing reality. I am not attempting to grasp anyone’s lived experience but rather just observe it and help where I can – be it here in Fiji, back home or anywhere else in the world.

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