A few weeks went by, and it was now early March 2020. The news in recent weeks had been rampant with the terrors of Covid-19, caused by the novel Coronavirus, but nothing had been closed yet. The world was preparing for something for which no one could imagine the extent of how it would impact society and the planet. She really didn’t know what was going on, so she was somewhat hesitant to agree to go for drinks when Mr. Divorcé contacted her to meet up. However, there hadn’t been anything official put in place yet and nothing seemed concrete, so she decided to take him up on his offer to meet for a drink and a bite to eat.
They had to be stealthy. She didn’t want him to pick her up in front of her parent’s place knowing that they would recognize his vehicle. He told her he would pick her up in his car, not his truck, and that he would wait for her down the street. They went to a local pub and she realized fairly early on that this was just a friendly hang out and not something romantic. He was still right in the middle of his separation and, unlike her and her break up, he was definitely not over it yet.
So, she listened to him while he vented about his ex and all their marital problems. She chimed in here and there with her own relationship anecdotes, but she could tell he really needed to get some things off his chest, and she knew that he needed to do it with someone impartial. She sipped her beers and ate the nachos they were sharing, until the conversation came to a natural conclusion. However, neither one of them wanted the night to end, so they stopped back by her parent’s place and she sneakily ran up to her room to grab her weed. Teenager Mode – Activated!
They drove over to a local coffee shop and parked. She rolled them a joint and they smoked it right there in his car. They talked some more, and it was so comfortable and casual. There were definitely a few moments where she hoped he might kiss her, but he didn’t. In hindsight, though, she was glad nothing happened. He dropped her off and told her he would message her soon.
It wasn’t exactly the date she had envisioned, but it felt really good to be out with a man who wasn’t her ex, and who she could be completely herself with. She didn’t have to shrink herself down to be viewed as worthy or interesting. Plus it was just nice to talk about something other than endangered animals and the end of the world, which were big, depressing topics of conversation throughout her relationship.
In the weeks prior to this rendezvous, no one knew what would happen in regard to this looming pandemic. Would businesses close? Would people lose their jobs? Would we all be dead in a month?? The fear of the virus was rising, and she knew that it would only be a matter of time before her place of employment would be closed as well.
The Monday after her date, she went in to work. The buses were empty, the streets were a ghost town. Everyone spent the morning bleaching and sanitizing their areas, which they had also done the week prior. She was there for a total of one hour before she was sent home, as there was no more work to be done. And thus began her time in quarantine limbo.
She was one of the fortunate ones as she was able to get on to Employment Insurance very quickly, and she had job security for when things went back to “normal”. But now what? She had been back home for not even two months, and now she was off work again, not able to see her friends again, stuck at home doing nothing again. First World problems though, right? She was healthy, she was with her family, and most importantly – she was out of her toxic relationship. The thought of being stuck there with him in quarantine played over and over in her head. She couldn’t believe how lucky she was to have gotten out of there when she did. If she had to be in quarantine, there was no where else in the world she would have wanted to be.
She began her first few days in lockdown with a very positive attitude. She wasn’t going to waste this extra time. She was going to work out, she was going to sketch and paint more, she even went as far as to start a puzzle with her parents. But soon, her productive streak began to dwindle. The puzzle was moved from the dining room table, to a table in the garage, and then back into the box after really only finishing the sides and a bit of the middle part. She painted a few times, sketched here and there, but for the most part she was just stuck inside her own four walls with nothing to do and nothing to think about but her failed relationship and the trauma she had suffered. Things she didn’t want to think about were at the forefront of her mind and it took everything in her power not to break down and cry all day every day.
It was then that she began writing.
Growing up, writing had always been one of her creative outlets. She would write her own stories, write in her diary, and she and her cousin even wrote short stories together about a pair of best friends named Kirsten and Christina. They would have adventures around their school and would talk about boys, friends and even monsters in the staff room! (They were 10 and 11, don’t judge) She even took a writing course as an elective in high school. But as she got older, her passion for it faded away. She was just never inspired enough to write. She never had anything to say. Well, she definitely had something to say now.
One random day in quarantine, she opened up her dad’s busted ass early 2000’s laptop and just started writing. Anything and everything she thought, felt, questioned – she wrote it all down. It came out as gibberish, she felt, but with a bit of editing, she actually felt like she had written something worth reading. Not being able to see her friends or tell them about it in person, she sent her first draft to a few of them and asked for their opinions or notes. Unanimously, they all said how wonderful it was, how honest and raw, and a few of them suggested she start a blog.
That idea seemed so far fetched to her. Who the hell would read long winded ramblings about her failed love life? (Well, you would, apparently! Thanks for being here) But the more she thought about it, the more it empowered her to take this next chapter of her life into her own hands. Her fears about her ex finding out, or about it being a complete failure, just didn’t seem like good enough reasons not to try it. The problem was, she had absolutely no idea how to build a website, or what a blog even really was? Luckily, her cousin’s fiancée was a marketing major and a real whiz when it came to website construction. She reached out to her and hoped they would be able to work out a time for her to be taught everything she would need to know.
She had chatted with Mr. Divorcé a few more times after lockdown happened. The conversations were kind of boring and they really only talked about surface stuff. She tried to engage him in more interesting topics, but he kept coming back with short replies and giving nothing to the conversation. She discovered that he had re-instated his Facebook profile and tried twice to Friend him. Both times he just left her hanging. It was a few weeks before they chatted again, and she called him out on not adding her. His response was that he didn’t want his ex to see her on his friends list and to think something was going on. If she couldn’t take the hint before, she had now just been slapped in the face with it. She knew this was going no where, even just as a friendship, so she gave up any attempts to keep in touch. So much for that form of lockdown entertainment. That’s when the dating apps came in…
Stay tuned for Chapter Twenty. New chapters posted every Wednesday at 8pm, EST