Isolation

12:00AM, January 1st, 2020. Light from the explosions of fireworks bounce off your face as you look down at your phone. Your mind races as you wonder how the New Year will treat you. You are filled with a weird sense of excitement and nervousness and you hope for the best. You look towards the night sky full of different colors and patterned explosions thinking that your life will see a drastic change in the next few months, unbeknownst to you the next few months will transpire into a literal life changing scenario - COVID 19.

Just like everyone else in February/March, my life was forever changed. Instead of different shirts and shoes littering my car, it was now littered with different masks, both disposable and reusable. No one could have foreseen the drastic shift in life that we would all be experiencing in 2020. I still remember celebrating the end of 2019 like it was the end of a war, my 2019 was already full of so much strife that I was really looking forward to making 2020 my bitch. I could have never been so fucking wrong in my life. 2020 was a slow burn, we were all excited/scared of what was going on with this pandemic and let's be honest a lot of us weren’t taking this seriously and probably saw this “quarantine” as something that would last no longer than a week or so.

I look back at it and laugh at how my mindset was back then. “Oh we’re out of work for a week? SWEET!” I saw it as a damn vacation until it went from me hanging out with the homies to me going insane because I haven’t left my house in weeks. I think a lot of us felt this slow burn of 2020, we started excited and joking around about this pandemic to scolding others for being irresponsible whilst also envying those with such ignorance that we lack. Those that were ignorant towards this pandemic were having a blast and I’m not here to put anyone down because I’m not going to lie, I had a bit of FOMO seeing people partying during quarantine. I mean how could I not be jealous? I was in my house for days at a time just reading manga, playing video games, learning origami, and trying to draw MegaMan.

I believe the word “pandemic” really felt real when we all started to realize that wearing masks WAS the new norm and the lives and plans we had before all this started, were never really going to be the same. Personally, it started to hurt me when I realized that all the events I planned to be at, and all the releases I wanted to make had to be put on hold. I couldn’t create and I couldn’t network in person. When the pandemic started to feel real, I started to get isolated depression, I lost interest in building Giantz and I lost interest in honestly building myself. Twitter and Instagram were surprisingly flooded with more posts than normal and most of the time the posts were rather depressing and reflected much of how I felt at the time.

“I wish I could go out.”

“My future is on hold. So now I’m just stuck.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.”

Prior to 2020, I would always hear people say that they were home-bodies or wished they had more time to be home. Then, when we were forced to stay home all of that changed. For those of us who were trying to go out more - we felt more held back than ever. It definitely fucked a lot of people’s mentals, and led a lot of people to start picking up some bad habits. Or, let’s be real, some of them just let themselves fall into in a bad fucking rut. The other half of 2020 is what I like to call the recovery stage. A lot of us were still adamant about coming out yet knew that if we didn’t start making moves, the time we lost during quarantine would only be multiplied. Yet, we were still so scared about bringing harm to ourselves and others. I remember being attached to my phone when all the riots were happening shortly after the news of George Flloyd. I stayed up all night worried about the state of the rioters in Washington. Everyday, I was in disbelief to the discord and just blatant racism that was thrown into our face. I mean for fucks sake it’s 2020, why the hell are people still so fucking racist? Anyways, before I start to go off on a tangent, that shit really got me fucked up. It both empowered me to try to do something and to also educate myself/others. In all honesty, I couldn’t help but feel even more useless. While others were out there getting hurt and even dying fighting for what they believe in, here I was at home stuck in quarantine. It was a horrible feeling, mix that up with the isolation depression I felt when my life was put on pause and it just makes a bad mixture.

Not all was dark though, during that isolation I learned to value relationships more, and learned how to strengthen/build them via the internet. *Queue Rocky Balboa theme music* This is the part where things started to look better. Though I was still at home in my boxers fucking around on my laptop, I found ways to stay productive and actually make my life feel like it was moving. Although I could never move at the speed I wanted to, things were actually moving. I started making friends over the internet and slowly started to rebuild Giantz online. I never thought that locking myself away in a house for so long could actually have benefits but these were one of them. The relationships I built on the internet and the support that I received from all of you, is what helped push me out of the dark abyss that COVID put me in.

It sounds really corny but my friends and the support I received is what helped me recover from this hell hole. So here's a tip for those of you still trying to find your footing within this unstable word we live in now. Have some fucking hope and rely on your friends. During quarantine, a bunch of nightmare filled scenarios were already thrown into our faces. Why would we continue to want to search for more? I think isolation really helped me learn to stop looking outside and really start looking within myself. Before I could make any impacts on the world around me, I had to impact the world living inside of me. We are still far from normal but we have come a long way from where we were before, and I think we all just need to absorb and value that. Take it one step at a time and have yourself realize that you aren’t alone, there are literally millions of other people suffering from the same issues as you. Like, getting the job you finally wanted, only to have it taken away from you because of COVID. Or, you finally finding yourself, only to lose yourself again in quarantine. These are very valid examples as to why you may have found yourself falling flat on your ass. But, you have two hands, use them to pick yourself up. You also have a mouth so speak up when you need help.

We are so quick to complain about people not wearing masks, but I think we seldom never realize how much of a fucking accomplishment it is for humankind to ban together and actually start to move forward in progression towards getting COVID out of our lives. We may have some hiccups here and there but a win is a win. Same thing when it comes to recovering our lives from this nightmare, a win is a win no matter how small or big. A co-worker told me this quote recently and it goes like this: “fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.” It doesn’t matter how hard it is to move. Even if you bust your ass trying to do it, as long as you’re taking steps trying to do it thats all that fucking matters.

Life is NEVER OVER no matter how hard shit comes and goes. Isolation is over, you can come out of your house and come out of your shell. Take your first step forward to reclaiming your fucking life. Fuck COVID and fuck 2020, we’re halfway through 2021 lets make the rest of this year worth it. Stay Giant.

NOTE: Blogs after this one is going to be more focused on culture and lifestyle. As much as I love to just talk about life I also want to share my love for clothes, music, sneakers, and manga with you all. Thank you for all the support & love.