Content Warning: Mention Of Death
Late one evening in early December, I drove to a local shopping center parking lot in suburban Los Angeles. Filled with frustration and anger, I experienced one of the many emotional breakdowns I had been having lately. Screaming and crying in the near empty parking lot in my hometown was one of many breaking points I’ve experienced these last few months, living with my parents during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In early March, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I would frequently send updates to my parents, warning them of how bad things were getting in New York, to which they would reply with thumbs up emojis or simple “OK” replies, unconcerned. On top of the looming and soon to be life-changing pandemic, I was also struggling with another traumatic event of my own. I was grieving the recent death of my long-term ex-boyfriend, whom I had been with nearly a decade, even though we had just recently ended our relationship a few months prior. His death, which was sudden, had occurred in March, right as things were getting more intense.
When I returned back to my parents’ house in Los Angeles, my dad kept saying proudly, “No one else has gotten it right so far. My daughter saw this thing coming from the start!” I wasn’t the first one to see the warning signs that the pandemic was coming for New York at full force. I just know where to find reliable sources, and also, unlike my dad, I don’t rely solely on right-wing media.
At the beginning of the outbreak, back in the spring, my family took the pandemic seriously. They listened to me when I asked them to sanitize their groceries and they committed to leaving the house only for essential activities. However, as the summer months came and the weather warmed up, their precautions and safeguards started to become looser. The first instance was my sister’s decision to go on a vacation to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico with her boyfriend, followed by my mom’s necessary but still concerning trip to check on her house in her hometown of Michoacán, Mexico. I was uncomfortable with all of these constant trips. At first, I tried to raise my concerns to my family. However, I was dismissed by my parents, who run a strict “our house, our rules” policy. Even though I am an adult, because I was under their roof, I had no choice but to either comply or leave. I am still reminded of traumatic childhood experiences where my father would openly announce that our home was a “dictatorship.”
My family members were wearing masks and socially distant to a certain extent, my sister worked from home, for example. I still felt unsafe: I had no say and no control of my environment. More recently, I was told that my sister’s boyfriend had taken off to some conference in San Francisco via airplane. Upon hearing this, I expressed my concerns and my feelings of uneasiness about him coming to our house without following the proper quarantine standards. To make matters worse, he was planning on getting on another flight, to Florida, with the intention to go skydiving in the middle of a pandemic.
My intentions were pure, as I was just looking out for everyone’s health and wellbeing, my sister’s boyfriend included. When discussing this with my family, I brought up the CDC’s guidelines on avoiding non-essential travel. All I wanted was to be heard and my wishes, as a member of the household, to be respected. Instead, my dad would gaslight me by telling me,“I’m not worried about it and so neither should you.” Following that conversation, my mom even told me that if I didn’t like it here, I should go and stay with my girlfriend and her parents, essentially trying to tell their daughter to find other housing, because, again, “my house, my rules.”
On top of the consistent arguing and gaslighting by my family, grieving from the loss of my ex-boyfriend and underlying health conditions and doing my senior year remotely, my mental health was hanging by a thread.
While my sister’s boyfriend decided that doing activities like jumping out of planes during a pandemic was essential, he suffered an accident, due to wrong landing and is currently in recovery, which he is expected to fully make. For the next two weeks following his accident, he would move into my family’s home, and it would cause havoc in our home. My mother gave up her bedroom, partly because of the accessible nature of her bed. I couldn’t help but feel as if my feelings didn’t matter or rather no one cared about my feelings in my family.
That’s when I knew I had to do something.
I’m planning on returning back to Brooklyn come the new year and new semester, which is my final semester at The New School. Although I am terrified of moving back to New York, forcing myself to get on a plane in the middle of a pandemic and also with cases getting higher and higher daily, I feel like this is the necessary choice to make for my safety and wellbeing. The pandemic has put a strain on my relationship with my parents, one that might take years to fix, even in a post-pandemic world, if there is one. However, I know I’m not alone. Many of my peers, who also spent this semester at home, have mentioned similar frustrations, whether it be election-related or COVID-related familial conflicts, are also planning on returning back to New York.
At the end of the day, although COVID-19 is real and it has devastated the world, it has also devastated and shattered close relationships, much like mine with my family. I’m tired of the selfishness and apathy that I’ve witnessed throughout this whole pandemic. I’m tired of hearing comments like, “It’s the new normal and we just have to learn to adapt and adjust.” This is not a new normal, the pandemic will pass. In fact, on Dec. 14 the first vaccine in New York was given, and we will get through it. All it takes is just a bit of patience and doing the right thing. I’ve tried explaining these exact feelings I’ve been experiencing to my family and because of their apathy and disregard for others, it’s put a huge strain on our relationship. If there’s one thing this pandemic has shown me, it’s the importance of not being selfish. Rather, I have learned the importance of being selfless. To be willing to put your life on hold, to protect and save someone else’s. Although my parents, my sister and her boyfriend choose to “adapt to a new normal” and carry on as if everything is normal, I choose to do something about it. I chose empathy over apathy.
