Sad
One afternoon at the end of April, I was preparing for my final exam.
Suddenly, a knock on my bedroom door came, and I was startled. Getting up to open the door, I felt exhausted.
When I opened the door, I saw the anxious and painful face of my roommate Elaine. I was surprised and heard her say: “Our flight tickets were cancelled due to Covid-19. We can’t return home!”
In an instant, I seemed to be unable to react to her words. A very sad emotion instantly filled my whole body and mind. I had not seen my family for a year. But air tickets are now many times more expensive than normal, and a flight that far has so many transfers now, which means it may not be possible for me to return home this summer.
I looked out of the window, and there was dripping rain. The dark clouds enveloped the whole sky, and it was all gray, which once again negatively affected my mood. It was dark before dinner, I thought. I have no incentive to cook for my dinner.
I opened my music app and found my favorite original singer’s song, trying to distract a little from this bad mood. The song sang: “I waited for you to appear until the sunny day turned into a rainy day. My repeated feeling of miss has grown into cocoons.”
Oh! How this matched my feeling right now!
Then I picked up my textbook and started learning, trying to divert my attention for a while and drag myself out of sadness. However, the words in the textbook seemed to be unable to enter my brain, and I felt very dull at that time. An irritable emotion flooded my entire body, and in this way, I sat for an entire afternoon, doing nothing.
It was again a night of insomnia.
I was lying on the bed, looking at the ceiling. I tried to control my desire to reach for my phone. Every time when I can’t sleep, I want to look at my phone to get some pleasure that the fast information brings to me.
The feeling of not being able to fall asleep always drives me anxious and crazy. It made me realize that time is passing by, but I did nothing. So I hoped to grab my phone to escape from this anxiety temporarily.
However, my sanity told me, “Keep trying to sleep, don’t go to the world of the mobile phone, otherwise you won’t be able to get up on time tomorrow.”
I rolled over, trying my best to expel these chaotic thoughts from my mind. But all kinds of whimsy still keep jumping into my mind uncontrollably. The more times I told myself: “Do not think about anything, sleep,” the more my brain was filled with weird ideas.
I struggled, but failed. Finally, I got up, took a slice of melatonin, then went back to my bed.
In fact, I didn’t know how effective melatonin itself would be, but I knew it could at least comfort me, and offer me some confidence to go to sleep.
Sweet
A brief message from my roommate Elaine came to my phone: “Hey, come out and bake cookies together?”
I thought it was good, so I readily agreed. I walked to the kitchen, seeing her pound mashed potatoes, and enthusiastically said to me: “You have never made potato cookies, right? Life is too boring now, let’s make some waves together!”
Then I learned how she did, and I started to stir up mashed potatoes, adding sugar, butter, eggs, and a little four. Then pinch them into the shape of small cookies, and bake them in the oven. While waiting, we chatted with each other.
“Recently staying in the room every day, what do you usually do to pass the time?” I asked with a wry smile.
Elaine responded with an awkward smile and said: “It’s about half of the time in bed and half of the time with a mobile phone.”
“The same.” I replied. “The worst thing is that the final exam is coming, but you know what, I feel I really don’t have any incentives to do the reviewing work. So many things have happened recently, too hard for me to concentrate on my work. Ugh.”
We had a nice conversation for a while, and we found that we were recently watching the same girl group talent show which is called “Youth With You.” We felt surprised and excited, the more we talked, the happier we felt. Due to the busy study before, there was little time for us to talk about entertainment with each other. Now we found out by chance that we still have so many things in common. With chatting and laughing, time passed quickly.
We took the cookies out of the oven to see how they turned out. Well, they looked good. And we tasted them, and they seemed neither sweet enough nor crispy. Thus, we sprinkled them with a little bit more fine sugar and put them in the oven to bake again, waiting for a more refined result.
Warm
I think back to this time last year: I had returned home, reuniting with my family members.
I missed them so much right now, so I made the video call, hoping to chat with my family for happiness. But no one answered.
“Maybe they are busy now.” I thought.
I opened the album on my phone, browsing the photos taken last summer. A photo of me and my three-year-old little brother came into my sight, and I remembered the time when we went to the new park together with our mom and dad in July last year. I took my brother’s hand, walking in the fantastic natural park with our parents.
In my memory, the breeze blows, bringing a hint of coolness to the hot weather, and I feel so happy and relaxed.
While I was immersed in the memories of the past, the video call rang and it was my mother. I answered, and felt more pleasant and warm seeing her familiar face in the video.
“Are you okay recently? Be sure to protect yourself during this special time.” Mom said to me with a smile as usual.
“I’m pretty good, you can rest assured.” I tried to squeeze out a smile to cover up my sorrow. I didn’t want my mother to worry about me.
“Sister!” Suddenly, I heard a lovely voice over the phone, and I knew it was my little brother, without guessing. So my mother turned the camera to my brother and a sweet smile came into my eyes. Seeing that innocent smile, my pain seemed to be completely wiped away.
“Sister, when will you come back to have a picnic with me?”
“That will be soon! Don’t be naughty at home, will you?”
Later, I also saw my father, grandma and grandpa in the video. Although I often make video calls with them, I still miss them very much, and I really want to give them a hug. In particular, my grandma and grandpa are already old, so we must cherish every time we spend with them.
Bitter
After hanging up the phone, my mother sent me a photo of their dinner through WeChat.
I looked at the hearty meal in the photo, feeling very familiar. It seemed that I could entirely recall the taste of each dish. Because that’s what I ate at home every day for the past 18 years! I cannot prevent myself from missing these delicacies.
In the photo, there was my favorite food — sweet and sour pork ribs. During this quarantine period, I tried several times to make this wonderful dish myself, but I still failed to make it taste like home. Thinking of this, I couldn’t help feeling a little bit bitter in my heart.
I sat at my desk, with a cup of homemade milk tea I just prepared, and began my daily work.
I logged in to Bloomberg and started making the daily report for today. This is a daily job that I have to do every day since I began my remote internship.
Repeating boring work over and over again makes me have no interest and motivation at all. Moreover, fear of making mistakes puts me in a constant state of tension and nervousness.
I did it mechanically. After I finished, just preparing to check, my phone screen suddenly turned on. A text message from my manager: “Are you finished? Please send it to me now.”
I had to send it to him immediately.
While waiting for his feedback, I gradually fell into contemplation. For my past three college years, I always thought I enjoyed working in the financial industry and I liked to do equity research. But what makes me frustrated is that I have been doing boring and repetitive basic work for a month, and it is not helpful for improving my ability at all.
I even began to doubt whether my choice for the career path is correct or not. Can I really feel happiness and obtain the sense of accomplishment in this job? I could not get the answer right now. This is the biggest confusion for me during this quarantine time.
However, I will still keep trying my best to do my job better, and I believe time will give me the answer.
Bored
As the alarm sounded, I rolled over, and my consciousness was blurred. When I woke up again, it was 11 a.m.
I quickly jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom. Looking at my disheveled hair in the mirror, and the slightly dark circles under my eyes, I wanted to laugh suddenly. Hey, it is again a day with no energy, I meditated.
At home, I am getting lazier and lazier, and my movements have become much slower than before. I mechanically do the cleaning work after getting up, brushing my teeth, washing my face, skin care, and boiling water. Everything is so mechanical, all of these actions are repeated every day, without any consciousness. These trivial tasks are boring and annoying, but they cannot be skipped, otherwise there will not be any refreshment for the whole day.
After finishing the simple but time-consuming task, my stomach began to scream. I hurried to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, seeing what I could do for my “breakfast” to start this day. The result was very disappointing. There was only something that was too greasy to eat in the refrigerator, which would not offer me any joy of cooking and eating. However, I was still hungry. I took out a box of fried dumplings from the refrigerator.
Heat the pan and put a little butter in it, then add eight dumplings.
While waiting for the dumplings to heat up, I was lost in my thoughts. How long has it been to repeat this inanimate and non-memorable life? It seems that I have no feeling about it anymore. It was numb, so numb that I failed to sense the passage of time. Oh, it’s been almost three months. But why didn’t I feel it? In these three months, a quarter of a year, what have I done and what have I experienced? Why can’t I remember? It seems I have not done anything meaningful. Recalling this time in the future, I may only remember the boredom of staying at home every day, without vitality.
Suddenly, there was a squeak coming from the pan. I awakened, realizing that it was time to take out the dumplings and put them on my plate.
Don’t think too much, just live your life, I told myself.
Ying Cao || Ann Arbor, MI || Early May, 2020