Time has taken on a strange, shifting shape over the past year, I think. For a lot of us. Time gained, in some senses—in commutes that were suddenly no longer, in evenings once spent at happy hours or the movies or any other number of events from the Before Times. Time lost, as well. It seems to take me longer to get going for the day when I work from home, as I watch Schitt’s Creek and drink my tea, lumbering from task to task until I finally sit down at my kitchen table or couch to work.

Law school gives you so little time to deal with, well, anything beyond school itself. When I went through a breakup and the death of a family member within a span of a few weeks in law school, I just buried all that hurt and sadness and moved through the semester completely numb. It was the unhappiest I have ever been.

The opposite was the case this fall, both due to the pandemic and to my move to a new state, to a small city I had never heard of. In the aftermath of a breakup, especially, the dichotomy between the exciting, terrifying, dizzying pace of a new job and career—only to come home to my giant empty apartment and sit alone with Netflix and my feelings for hours—felt jarring at best, and completely crushing at its worst. Continue reading →