To the blankness living in my lungs,

While the feeling is specifically rooted in the global situation, it stretches out, connecting to a much earlier time. It’s as though this is just the maturity of something I’ve known for longer.

See, the year 2019 felt like a tragedy to me. It was a very invisible but unmistakable loss—of safety, perhaps, or comfort, stability or understanding of any kind. I no longer have clarity of my life, the world and my place among the two. But that’s not something I’m allowed to grieve, is it? I can’t mourn “a bad year” and I definitely can’t take my time doing it.

I wish I could be a ghost: lingering in the spaces where I think I might find answers, while never having to explain myself. My only job would be to try and move on from that damned emptiness that blankets everything.

“The Isolation Journals” started as a 30-day quarantine creativity project. It was created by the brilliant Suleika Jaouad for the challenging occasion that is COVID-19. A different journaling prompt landed in my inbox every day for the month of April 2020, each one from a different writer, artist, musician or thinker. As the global situation expanded, so too did the journaling project.