Navigating (Dis)Closure During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Kristi Murray Costello
What I Feel:
Link to Playlist: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ31VB1_fRBDr6rVgZZAFFCWOuPzwNZoL&feature=share
As I tried to get comfortable in the hospital bed, machines beeped loudly and three nurses were huddled around me checking screens and attaching wires. Was I laying on something that was causing all of this noise? Should I be in a different position? Finally, I asked the nurse, “Is there something I should be doing?”
“Do you have your affairs in order?” she asked.
In my first several months as a COVID longhauler, not a week went by without an article titled something like “Literary Journals Don’t Want Your COVID Stories” and “Stop Writing About COVID.” The one thing I wasn’t supposed to write about was the only thing I could think to write about. Throughout my life, writing has helped me identify, celebrate, and communicate who I am. My writing has always been a place where I can be honest and vulnerable, often beyond what I feel comfortable doing in person, and, as such, masking in my writing and hiding who I was becoming and what I was going through led me to feel further not just from others, but from myself.
As I look back on the emails I sent over the past sixteen months and most of my social media posts, I don’t see myself. At least not the self-image I have worked to cultivate—confident and self-aware. I see someone who has internalized capitalism, neoliberal ideas about work, and Midwestern grit narratives so much that her very value depends on her productivity and a persona of perseverance. I see the young girl who was told to “smile more.” Each time I logged into my email, I saw at least one email with an exclamation mark indicating the need for immediate attention even though now I am able to see more clearly how few, if any, of them were actual emergencies. From them, I took the message: “We don’t have time for you to be sick.” And I gave in. I tried to respond to every email immediately and felt guilt and shame when I could not.
In these emails, I see someone apologizing over and over for her body and its limitations, embarrassed to ask for time, grace, and assistance. I see someone who was afraid to show physical vulnerability for fear of losing her job, her ethos, and her reputation as a "positive" person. In fact, at one point, as I settled in for a long night in the hospital, I began to craft a funeral playlist, and I called it “Gratitude” so as not to freak out my partner and friends who follow my YouTube Music. If I didn’t make it home, I figured they would find it and know what to do from there.
I chose “If We Were Vampires,” the song my partner and I would listen to and cry on the scariest days when my breath felt shallow and trapped in my chest. I also included Bright Eyes “First Day of My Life,” the song I walked down the aisle to when I married my best friend and all-time favorite person. “Here Comes the Sun” was added because it reminds me of lazy afternoons spent laying on my stomach, chin perched on my elbows, listening to my parents’ records as I thumbed through magazines and my brother played video games. I picked Nico’s “These Days” because it reminds me of my favorite scene from one of my favorite movies: Margot Tenenbaum steps off the Green Line Bus in her fur coat. Time slows as her gaze meets Richie’s. I’ve always loved the way Wes Anderson made space for silence just before the music starts; it makes me smile. Something about that moment and that feeling I get when I watch that scene felt important to me as I crafted my playlist. Meanwhile, Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers” was somewhat aspirational; I hoped that those who knew me would indeed believe I belonged somewhere beautiful where I felt free. Each song was handpicked but the order was not important, and I didn’t choose all my favorite songs, just songs that felt right. For once, I didn’t labor over “the rules” of making a mixtape internalized from opinionated exes and too many reads and viewings of High Fidelity and The Perks of Being a Wallflower because it wasn’t about that. I just wanted the people in my life to know how loved they were, how much I wanted for them, and how, at the end, I was thinking of them, all of them. I wanted my playlist to say what I had not. Or at least what I was realizing I had not said often enough.
It can be hard to be open about mortality and chronic illness with our closest loved ones, so it makes sense that it's even more awkward and difficult in professional settings, but it can also be difficult for us when we don’t. Disclosure is complicated, and so is silence. Sharing about our health is exhausting; Withholding details about our health is also exhausting. All options take energy that we do not have to spare, and it is difficult to know what to share and when and with whom.
As I mentioned early on, I do not yet have answers. I still have much to learn about how to navigate my post-COVID body and what it means to be chronically ill. I am still learning what it means to engage in carework for myself and not toward better productivity or achievement. For now, I liken my current situation to driving in a snowstorm. It’s scary because even though I am driving slowly, I can barely see beyond my car, and the conditions ahead are unpredictable. Occasionally, something will let up for a moment. Other times, the snow falls more heavily. I have to be careful and deliberate, and one missed turn can set me back considerably, maybe even be dangerous. I do not know what’s around the corner up ahead. I do know though that it takes bravery and self-love to disclose about our health, and it takes tenacity and badassery to advocate for what we need. And every time we do, we normalize the process of sharing our needs and, hopefully, little by little make our work and workplaces a little more accessible, like snow plows, making the path ahead easier for ourselves and one another to travel.
* Many thanks to all the snow plows out there.
Link to Playlist: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ31VB1_fRBDr6rVgZZAFFCWOuPzwNZoL&feature=share