Getting Back

by Isabela Zavala

As I ate my lunch during my 9-5 job on October 5th, 2020 – my deadline to somehow have my whole life miraculously figured out – I sought a great meaning to the day. I never enjoyed my birthdays, as I’m sure is clear by my decision to spend it at a job I despised. But for so long, and a reason I can’t explain, my 18th was different.

For as long as I could remember, I dreamed of finally being 18. Growing up, 18 was the magic number that signified the beginning of independence, adventure, confidence and a life beyond the city I spent years too scared to explore. So, why didn’t 18 feel magical?

As I let days go by in an isolation brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, doing nothing but listening to music while laying in my bed that was full of Takis crumbs, I questioned myself, my purpose in life, and most of all: the looming concept of time. Days began to mesh together and feel the same, with slight variances; and even though days seemed to go by slowly, weeks passed by and before I knew it, I had done nothing but lay in my bed.

Falling into what seemed like an existential crisis: “What am I doing with my life?” became a question that I asked myself all throughout quarantine. For years, I had the fear of time passing by and being disappointed in how I used it. Admittedly, a large part of this came from a combination of post-traumatic stress disorder that confined me to the walls of my purple bedroom and the ever-present pressure I felt to work hard to someday graduate from college and provide for my family – a pressure I’m sure many first-generation students feel. I felt disappointed in myself for spending my teenage years succumbing to my anxieties dreaming that I was 18 and now that I finally was, I couldn’t go back. Despite my obvious privilege to just be alive and going to school during these times, I couldn’t help but fall into a hole of thinking that I