A week before shelter-in-place started, a week before much of the world came to a halt, there was a birthday party for my aunt. It was the picture of pre-COVID life for me: people gathered together, storytelling, shoving food in our faces, my three-year-old daughter Emmy running around and laughing with her cousins. And yet the thing that stands out the most from that party is not the karaoke or the Filipino food, but rather the purple balloon Emmy took home.
Over the next month, Emmy would play with this purple balloon, twirling with it, batting it up to the ceiling, or sitting on it to try and make it pop. It survived. Every night, after Emmy was put to bed, I sat on our couch to watch TV, but ended up staring at this purple balloon with its purple string, bobbing in the corner of the living room, just to the left of the TV. I don’t recall if Emmy always put it in the same place or if the ceiling fan just pushed it to that corner, but every night, without fail, there it was, a happy little ball of air bouncing against the ceiling.
Not THE purple balloon in this story. I never thought to take a photo of that one for some reason.
As weeks passed, and air dissipated out the balloon, it descended further and further away from the ceiling. The once shiny rubber was dull and covered in dirty handprints. I noted how far it fell – one day it was a couple inches from the ceiling, a few days later just above the floor lamp, a week after that just above the armchair. At some point, the string got caught in the ceiling fan, so we cut it off, and Emmy soon lost interest in the balloon altogether.
A few days ago, I found it on top of some cords behind the TV stand. Dusty, wrinkled, deflated. My quarantine life had started out much like the balloon’s. I felt good. I was certain it wouldn’t get to me. I had my wife, my daughter, tons of Netflix and Hulu to stream, a new elliptical machine in the garage, books to read, books to write, and the ability to work from home. Little by little, however, isolation chipped away at me. I grew lonely and irritable. I felt defeated at trying to telework and give as much attention to Emmy as she needed. I became overly frustrated with Emmy’s suddenly voluminous tantrums, forgetting quarantine was probably affecting her more than it affected me. I wasn’t getting much sleep, worried about being a terrible father or how much technology Emmy was using or why fatherhood had become such a struggle. I was angry at the way people were talking at each other and about each other online. I was angry at the news. I convinced myself that I was seeing people truly for the first time, especially as it related to COVID, selfish and incapable of seeing past their own noses. Other things and thoughts and realizations happened, and the next thing I knew, I was on an impromptu walk in midday heat, staring at an empty playground, feeling like at any second my chest would explode in screams or tears or both.
It didn’t. I watched a squirrel for a while, took some deep breaths, went back home, and, not more than an hour later, found the old balloon.
You may have seen this quote before:
Often misattributed to Plato and other people.
I’ve never liked the quote. It values silence. It values a lack of communication. It values a lack of connection. While kindness does look like treating everyone with empathy, as the quote suggests, to me, an even kinder world looks like one where people actually share what they are going through with the idea of helping other people out, of helping people feel less alone. Most of us love the catharsis we get from reading a book or listening to music or watching a TV show or movie that moves the heart and speaks to our pain and experience, precisely because it makes us feel like we’re not alone, that someone else out there understands us. We crave that connection and understanding, but we are so unwilling to be that book, song, show, or film to another person. We are unwilling to be the source of connection.
When people ask me how my day is going now, I tell them. If it’s going great, I tell them. If it’s not going great, I let them know. New friendships have developed from this alone. Meaningful conversations. Deeper connections than the simple “Fine” and “Did you see the Sacramento Kings game?” Of course this doesn’t mean not to value your own privacy, I’m just saying we can’t ask for empathy or understanding when we aren’t willing to share it or give it back. Like the quote says, we’re all going through something. That includes the person you’re asking to be kind to you. Be kind back, or be kind first. Share. Share your humanity.
Or is this just me being selfish, because I have felt lonely these past few months? Am I the only withered balloon out there? Well, sharing the fact that I’m struggling through quarantine is hopefully me putting my money where my mouth is. If there are other deflated balloons out there, let’s chat.
Maybe we can help each other float again.