Quarantine 2020: I Just Wanted to Go on a Bike Ride

How quickly have we normalized life in quarantine! 

I am sitting now at my desk in my childhood bedroom, with what I can only describe as a reluctantly permanent set-up as the impending reality of summer confined to our houses becomes more and more sure. 

As the college year rolls to a close already, we seem to have adjusted to life like this. We type away on our laptops, navigating to the Canvas link for our recurring Zoom lectures as monotonously and auto-piloted-ly as when we would walk to lecture on campus. We add conferencing links instead of meeting room addresses to our Google calendar invites as casually as though we’ve never known an alternate reality where we see more than just the top halves of people on our screens. A flood of quarantine lifestyle literature has clogged our social media and news platforms as regularly as yoga and healthy food videos did. “Favorite quarantine activity” has become as common an icebreaker as “favorite ice cream flavor.” Signing emails off with “stay healthy,” is now expected as much as “best,” was before. 

We settled into routines and filled life with things to do. Yes, we adjusted to this life quite quickly, being creatures of habit and routine, even as our worlds are in pure chaos and nothing is normal. Nothing at all. 

It’s in this context, with this biting sense of pretense, that I had my first Mental Breakdown of Quarantine 2020. 

It started with an itch to be outside. Sitting in my room, trying to finish some work before lecture, my brain wandered endlessly off the pages of reading in front of me and into the great expanses of Outside. I haven’t left my house in 4 weeks. I haven’t talked to other humans, haven’t seen the inside of a different building. The thought of outdoor, beautiful, sun-lit air started to fill my chest with a deep, guttural longing. Somewhere on the edges of that fantasy, my blue bike called to me. 

That was it. I had to go on a bike ride. I couldn’t take it anymore. It wasn’t enough to just go on a walk. I needed to be free. Walking kept me tethered to the house, kept me limited in my itch to go and go far. But biking? Biking would be like flying. Whipping down the hills of Rochester, wind against my skin – I needed that freedom. I craved that freedom in a way I hadn’t ever before. 

I got ready and headed out to the garage. But my bike was hung up on the wall. Hmm. An obstacle. 

But no worries, it was nothing I couldn’t handle. I wrestled my bike and that stupid yellow hook that wanted to deny me my freedom, and after what felt like forever, I finally got it down. In triumph, I rolled my bike out of the garage, with the feel of the warm air and the itch to get on my bike and go completely unbearable now. But my tires were flat. 

Normally, filling up the tires was like a cherished ritual each spring. But now, it was nothing but a pure nuisance against my urgency to free myself from the cage of quarantine. I got the pump and tried filling up the tires, but the latch wouldn’t attach to the valve and frustration was turning my vision red and blinding me from the task. 

A family of three biked past the house, the little one wearing a colorful helmet and giggling louder with each peddle. Taunting me. 

Overwhelmed and exasperated, I pushed my bike over and stormed inside. Childish, hot-headed tears pushed me up the stairs into my room where I slammed the door and sat in a puddle of self-pity. 

All I wanted to do was go on a bike ride. That’s all. I wanted to have a whim, and I wanted to be able to make it happen for myself. 

There were other bikes in the garage that weren’t on the hook. There was another pump. There were people I could have asked for help if I had just been a little patient. But it wasn’t about that. It was that I wanted to take my bike, and I wanted to go when I wanted to go. 

I wanted, just once, to dictate what I would do and how I would do it. 

This virus, for the past few weeks, has been dictating what we can and can’t do. This virus has told me, “You can’t go to Milan,” a trip I’d been planning for a semester. It told me, “You can’t live in Ann Arbor anymore.” You can’t see your friends, you can’t go to school or see your professors. You can’t hug your mom because you might get sick. You can’t go on your camping trip, you can’t go on your club retreat, you can’t go to your conference, no matter how badly you wanted to go. You can’t go on your junior year spring vacation anymore, and you can’t go to your internship in Chicago. You can’t even go to the damn grocery store. You can’t do anything. 

But fine. These constraints I accept. These sacrifices I’ll happily make if it means we can protect our people and fix this mess. But all I wanted was the freedom to go on a bike ride. All I wanted was control over one aspect of my life, one semblance of freedom from the iron grip this virus has on our lives. 

The privileged position from which I can say all of this isn’t lost on me. I know that it could be so much worse than it is. I know that I am lucky that these are the concerns that plague me and not something worse. But in writing this piece and sharing with you my piece of frustration, I’m making a call to recognize the toll that this is taking on us, on even those of us who pretend like nothing is wrong and who have nothing really to complain about. It’s about suddenly finding yourself at the edge without realizing it and exploding in a way you never wanted to. It’s a call to check in with yourself and to recognize that while life may seem normalized in this chaotic world, it is not normal and it’s okay to feel exasperated with that. 

It’s okay, because we’re in it together and it’ll be over soon. This isn’t our new normal, this is a temporary normal.