Echoic Memories

I am startled awake by the vivid clearness of his voice. I can hear its faintness calling to me, leading me closer to the path of comforting my very own heart—a heart that has been damaged and distressed since this all began. As it brings me from this transient state between life and darkness back to reality, its confident and welcoming demeanor grows ever stronger. His is the first voice I’ve heard in awhile, and quite honestly it terrifies me, for I know that it's not real. There’s no way it can be real. I haven’t seen him since Lockdown began. We’ve barely even texted. So, what is he doing in my dreams?

I. Never. Dream. I could count the number of dreams I’ve had on my fingers. At least, until March 2020. Now, they’ve been as rampant as ever. In this newly acquired loneliness, I have learned that my imagination is actually pretty innovative. Between the hours of midnight and 9 A.M.— yes, I do sleep in that late, I don’t recall Lockdown coming with any guidelines other than survival— my dreams have taken me to outer space, ivy league colleges, symphony concerts galore (oh, how I miss the concerts), and I’ve even fallen in love, three times. Alright, its fake love, but in loneliness, you take what you can get, right? Speaking of love, I think it's the concept of love that startles me the most of his simple, profound message:

“Kayla,” he shouts. I can just picture the cheekiest grin on his face. “You know I love you right?”

“Yes, cousin,” I sheepishly stutter back, mid yawn. “I love you too.”

Freaked out by the nature of this interaction between myself and my cousin, rather a figment of my very own mind, so lonely that it is pushed into the obscure task of conjuring up past memories and morphing them into seemingly real events, I put effort in going back to bed. But, as soon as I close my eyes, my mind decides it's going to be a night full of imagination.

I begin to hear his voice again, “I love you,” it repeats. I try to ignore it, forcing a pillow over my head. Unfortunately, I can still hear it. Soon enough, the voice begins to distort into a different, familiar voice.

Now it’s my grandpa, “I love you,” he says, with the jocular addition of, “how’s the weather out there?”

Hasn’t changed since yesterday. Still cold. Oh grandpa, I laugh to myself in my meditative state.

More voices come to me. My mom. Dad. Brother, though I know his voice is ten times deeper than when I saw him last. Sister Goose. Both of my beautiful grandmas. Aunts. Uncles, though they’d be hard pressed to gushingly admit they said “I love you,” more like “don’t do anything stupid”, insert curse word of choice. More cousins. Friends. All of these people, radiating one uncomplicated memorandum: “I love you.”

Huh. I’m blown away by the message of my inner conscious thoughts. I love you? Is that the end all message that I needed to hear today? I don’t feel as if “love” has been a constant phrase in my life that would be lacking, but yet, it's the only image that comes to me. Seems to me that if my closest friends and family were to be used as a pawn to haunt me, bringing me closer to my different fears, they would at least preach a different story, one maybe with a little more death, maybe?

But yet again, death has become more prominent than ever with the pandemic. We are losing loved ones, and death seeps into every corner of every conversation, and I’ve lost the sight of “love,” or at least the love that I once knew. But, I guess, there is an argument that “love” is less important now than the path of survival. In objectifying survival though, I feel the love slipping, and love is not something that can be sacrificed… right? Somehow, there has to be a way love can be remolded, recycled, redefined…

As I lay awake, all these voices are as clear as the last day I heard them, the last time I said “I love you” to them, and they repeated those simple, three, life affirming words back. I am shocked at how clear I remember them, but yet again, these people fit into my life like the puzzle pieces that scatter the floor of the 10 foot dorm I deem my “space,” where puzzles, books, and knitting projects turn loose into the clutter of stuff that I like to deem as my shield from the outside world. My protection, moreover, in a world where COVID-19 runs rampant, and my only escape is school, work, and the occasional visit to see friends if I’m anxiety-free enough from the grapple of death to take a safe calculated risk for the sake of my own sanity.

I’m brought to tears at how much I miss them. And my fears of being alone, dying alone, bring me to shivering, my biological clock indicating that something is wrong, perhaps that I’m closer to isolation-induced insanity. I pull the blanket closer to me as I sob.

You see, I was so deeply spoiled. I grew up with a family I got to see yearly, nay monthly. A family that taught me the value of time spent together. Most importantly, they taught me to love fearlessly, deeply, and intently, and I count myself so very lucky to have muttered those three little words an infinite amount of times by the time I reached adulthood.

But with Lockdown, that allotted time together was ripped from my grasp, and with it went my heart. I was left with memories, memories that pale in comparison to the part of my identity that was so deeply entwined in meeting with the people I love. I quickly felt myself falling faster and faster into this pit, a pit we’ll label “self-isolation identity crisis.” Despite my endless tasks, texts, letters written, time spent in productive intellectual growth, I felt my identity slipping from me. Where is the love? I can’t feel it anymore!

Tonight, my struggles are becoming clearer to me: “I don’t know who I am without the people who have molded me, inspired me, and loved me.” And perhaps, pre-COVID, I had even grasped on to the moral of family—all important people included— a little too hard. I may have forgotten about myself in the process. But, who I would become without them is so increasingly important to contributing a little of my uniqueness (unique is a nice way of pointing out the sheer craziness that my family imposes) to the radiating love woven deep in our veins.

As I lay in the fetal position, tears streaking down my face, I think. “Where do I go from here, though? Who am I? What defines me?” I feel my anxieties rise as the answer evolves: “I don’t know.” I’m not even sure how to generate love for myself—such a difficult concept to adapt to, and one that takes many years to cultivate. But, I guess, now is as good of a time as any. I mean I have the time… So, in a quarantine manner like no other. I begin to make a list:

“Who am I?”

1. I’m lonely. Loneliness has purely been a result of the situation we have been placed in.

2. I’m bored. School isn’t cutting it anymore… There’s only so much you can look at a screen before you go bonkers. And, if I watch one more thing on Netflix, I think I may actually go insane.

3. I’m an angry crier. Let’s just face the facts, I get really passionate about things, and that includes things/people I’m angry at.

4. I’m compassionate. Hey that’s a good one! Compassion has always been a value I have worked to adhere to.

5. I’m smart, and the concept of learning is something that will never cease to amaze me.

6. I’m determined. I want to be a doctor someday, and I will get there.

7. I’m kind. I care. I want people to face their day as if they are unstoppable, and my

kindness could play a role in how they may perceive themselves.

8. …

The list continues until I re-secure the identity that had been slipping through my fingers since the moment the world was flipped on its axis. I finally settled on an answer to the question that skyrocketed my heartrate the first time it was brought to the forefront of my mind.

“I’m me.” That’s the only reasonable answer to come to. More importantly, “I’m me, and I am loved.” By myself, and by countless of others whose voices tiptoe across my memories, calling me home, any moment I feel myself backing into a corner while my identity runs from me in the opposite direction.

Even amidst this chaos and isolation, I have an army in my corner, and I’ve decided that memories will have to do for now. Unlike before, these memories act as the sunshine, showing all the love I have lived for, instead of the days together I am now missing out on. For I have countless of camping trips, reunions, shopping excursions, and lake house visits to recall and hold near and dear to my heart.

Although zoom calls, texts, and phone calls can’t replace a hug, they still offer a newly adapted love. In fact, they display a love that is willing to cross all boundaries to reach you, the lost and lonely sole. Finally breathing in all the love, I wipe my final tears, now tears of joy, and I nod off to sleep. For the first time in a while, I am finally at peace with myself, waiting for the next moment to shout those three tiny words, if even to myself: “I LOVE YOU!” For if one thing is for certain, time is limited, but love is timeless.

Addendum: There is always an army in your corner, tirelessly emitting love your way, standing up against the world, waiting to call you home when the time is right.