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THINGS I MISS
I Miss a Feeling I’ll Never Get Back
Turns out, having a sense of certainty about the future was always a luxury
Recently I watched a Broad City episode in which people were lined up outside a bakery for a macaron/churro pastry combo. It made me laugh — over-the-top pastry trends have been such a thing in New York City for the past few decades — but the scene also felt jarring. I realized I was worrying for everyone standing in line: They weren’t respecting social distancing!
“Imagine going out without a mask,” I think, only to remember that I was doing that last month. “Imagine not sanitizing your hands when you walk through the door.” And then, a more melancholy sentiment arises: “Imagine being so sure that tomorrow would look the same as today.”
More than I miss going to restaurants, getting massages, or riding the subway to see a friend, I miss a feeling. And, unlike meeting a friend for a drink at a sidewalk café, it’s something that won’t ever happen again. It’s a feeling lost in another time, in the world the Broad City characters are inhabiting: It’s the feeling of stability.
Now I know that it was a luxury to have that feeling: the delusion that anything is within my control, that anything can be predicted. Like the other comforts that…
