6 years ago the world shut down. We retreated to our homes, we tried to be safe, people switched to remote work, others went unemployed, some of us were thrown to the wolves. My pharmacy friends will occasionally lapse into telling stories about the bad old days, pulling the band-aid off a wound that will probably never heal. I don’t want to rehash the horrors, or relive the trauma, I just want to talk about the thing I miss the most, the person who I was and the spaces I inhabited.
Of all the lives I have lived 2019 was probably my best one. I was working as a floater, reveling in having minimal responsibilities for the only time in my career. I was working out consistently and feeling good in my body. I had the time and the budget for travel and traveled the country seeing Alaskan Glaciers and Hawaiian black sand beaches. Comedy was still a huge part of my life, and I was on stage a few times a week, settling in to a consistent feature spot where I could do longer sets. But most importantly I had a lot of contact with people. Many of my friends were in their pre-child glory, others just were more responsive to freedom and flexibility, plus I felt like I was public facing enough that I knew everyone in Burlington. It seemed like I was on a first name basis with every bartender and barista in Chittenden County, I knew at least a few people everywhere I went. I was able to channel my outgoing introvert into being a big fish in a small pond, and I fucking loved it. But then it was all gone, and I have spent the past few years chasing that high.
Deep into the pandy I realized that the thing that was changing me the most wasn’t the pure isolation, or the crushing anxiety, it was not having an outlet or a place to escape to. I had work, and I had home, but I did not have any third spaces that I could inhabit. I missed those coffee shops, comedy clubs, and bars, not because I couldn’t consume coffee, comedy, or beer at home. I missed the ability to co-habitate these spaces with other humans, to have some kind of in real life connection. In some cases it was the Cheers aspect of everybody knowing your name, or seeing people who you know from outside in this space. Other times it was going to places enough that you know the people who also use that place, they don’t need to become friends, or even someone you ever speak to, but that guy who sits at Onyx Tonics and works on his laptop is another piece of the ecosystem, another contact point who you know by sight, or head nod, a rando who has a place in your world.
As my world shrunk and I retreated to my cave I lost that randomness, and even after the restrictions lifted and the world came back to life I couldn’t find my way out. There would be occasional bursts of life where I would go out into the world and try to be present, but they were temporary and felt like little excursions into my old life. I have spent most of the past 6 years alone. Even when I would try and get established within other communities like with axe throwing I kept myself at arms length, trying not to get caught up in the community and only taking things at face value, parachuting in doing my thing and then leaving with no emotional or community ties.There have certainly been good times with friends, celebrations with family, and relationships, but those were more like vacations from a life that I have spent alone. Luckily I like being alone, which is part of why it has been so hard to break free. My cave is very comfortable, it’s filled with good art, specialty coffee, books, punk music, and all the movies that you can stream. I was able to build a nice little isolated life, but something in me still mourned for 2019 and the feeling of being out in the world. It is almost like some guy wrote an allegory about a cave a while ago where once you have seen the light it is hard to go back to a life in darkness.
My life became small because I let it become that way, and breaking out got harder and harder the longer I stayed away from the world. Much has been written about the decline of Burlington, and most of that is bullshit. While Burlington isn’t the quaint little college town that it once was it is far from a Mad Max hellscape that the internet portrays it to be. The place I live had changed, but nowhere near as much as I had. Most off my old haunts are still there, and I would pop in from time to time, but just enough to see what had changed before I scuttled back home. I was a tourist to the places I used to feel at home, and that hurt bad. For many years I could not bear that hurt, I couldn’t break through the anxiety and awkwardness to get to the other side. I avoided comedy not because I didn’t want to perform, but because I didn’t have it in me to put in the work to become a part of the community and to prove myself to the new people who have joined the scene. I shied away from the things that I enjoyed and the people who I like because I felt I was not enough and wasn’t willing to push myself to be better.
It has been a very long winter. The weather has been bad, I had a relationship not work out, my cousin has serious health issues, work has been stressful and isn’t getting better, I still have medical debt, the government keeps spiraling downward, my car keeps breaking, the dental apparatus makes it hard to speak clearly, one of my favorite trees got cut down, and on and on. But a few weeks ago a friend convinced me to go to an open mic, just to watch. I couldn’t sit there and not get up on stage, it was too painful. I didn’t do well, but it felt good. Earlier that day I forced myself to go to a coffee shop, where I ran into another friend who invited me to go to the movies, I took her up on the offer and laughed at an absurd time travel comedy. I have been going to the gym a few times a week and the other day I got a nod of recognition from one of the guys there. Last night I went to a concert and ran into some friends who I was NOT expecting to be into cryptid inspired saxophone dance music, we are going to make a date to go to trivia sometime soon. It may be a blip, but for some reason it feels a bit different, I might not be back, but I am certainly trying to be here now.
Third spaces have always made it possible to have the type of randomness that I thrive on. Now I just need to make an effort to spend more time inhabiting those spaces. A friend recently said that my best characteristic is that I have presence, when I am in a room people know it. Now I just need to work on putting myself in rooms. I don’t need to be the loudest voice or the center of attention, I just need to show up and people will notice. I also need to say yes to more things, to embrace the opportunities that are here for me. Who knows if it will last, or if this feeling is just a response of a sun starved brain getting a dose of 40 degree weather. But while I have this motivation, while I am riding this wave I might as well embrace it. Maybe I will look back at this time as an inflection point, much like March 2020 will always be burned into our brain, maybe I can make March of 2026 a time where I shook off the years of slumber and came back to my life. Maybe nature is healing.
Owen Foley 