VOICES: IT ONLY TOOK A PANDEMIC FOR ME TO REALIZE MY TRUE LOVE BY KIMBERLY R. NARIO

An odd title, considering I was sort of dumped last month. But we’ll get to that later. First, a confession. 

It pains me to say that in the last few weeks, I haven’t been to a single Richmond protest.

I could say it’s because I spend a significant amount of time with my 88-year-old grandma, and since we’re still in a pandemic, I simply cannot risk it. That’s a truth. But something much closer to the truth is that I haven’t been protesting in Richmond because I don’t live in Richmond anymore. 

These days I wake up in my childhood bedroom in Virginia Beach, surrounded by some things that used to decorate my one-bedroom apartment on East Grace Street, and other things (like a Josh Hartnett poster and glow-in-the-dark stars) that I left behind fourteen years ago when I first moved to Richmond.

This is not where I want to be. So why am I here?

Well, it’s simple. I can’t afford to be anywhere else. I lost both my jobs during the pandemic, and what little savings I had was used to cover the months when I was getting nowhere with — and nothing from — unemployment. (My last unanswered email to the unemployment office has “PLEASE HELP” as the subject line.)

Days of stay at home orders were growing on top of months, maybe years, of untreated anxiety and depression. I didn’t know what to do. I would wake up with an immediate urge to cry, wishing it was already late enough to be back in bed asleep. Some days I only got out of bed for the Zoom calls with friends. That’s where I did my best acting, pretending I thought things would be okay. In reality, I felt like my whole life was falling apart a little more each day, and I was beginning not to care if I got lost in the mess. 

I was slipping into fragile territory. My family could see it was becoming increasingly harder for me to take care of myself. So I left, and I went back to the place I wanted to get away from for so long.

And then George Floyd was murdered.

The day I left Richmond was the first day I remember hearing people were taking to the streets. Some friends texted asking if I was okay, noticing I lived close to where things were getting heated downtown. But I was already gone.

From afar, I watched Richmond, the place I’d called home my entire adult life, come together, and make change. I watched them endure violence at the hands of police and the decisions of the mayor. I watched them hurt, and I watched them celebrate. I’m still watching all of these things happen. I’ve never felt so homesick.

Moving during a pandemic is strange. Moving during an uprising, to a city where you don’t have close friends, into a house with your two very conservative, very Catholic, Filipino parents and one of your siblings is… also strange. But it has offered me a chance to have conversations I should have started a long time ago.

Sometimes I forget that my parents and I have very different understandings of this land. We were educated in different countries, so they didn’t learn about slavery or the Civil War. They don’t know about Jim Crow laws. They don’t know how the model minority myth reinforces white supremacy and contributes to anti-Blackness in the Asian community. I don’t even know everything I should know about these things. But I’m learning, and I’m making sure they are, too.

Now about the sort of break up… I call it a sort of break up because he wasn’t my boyfriend, but he was the only person I was seeing for about 10 months. Was he my emergency contact? No way. But would I call him if my car broke down on the highway? Absolutely. Well, not anymore, but I think you get it. If you listen to my podcast (Almost Nothing with Kimberly R. Nario), you may have heard me tell my celebrity crush that the pandemic is a perfect time for a breakup. Though I made that statement pre-split, maybe there was a part of me that felt it coming. I wasn’t remotely shocked when it happened, and I can’t say I was even very sad, disappointed, sure. But to be fair this wasn’t the first time he dumped me, not even the second (a story for another time). Part of me thinks it’s because I was already heartbroken from leaving my true love, Richmond. I cared about that guy a lot, but I wasn’t in love with him. I loved Richmond. And maybe I didn’t realize how much until I left. 

It can be easy for me to think of my time in Richmond as one of failure — bad decisions in my 20s that I’m still paying for in my 30s, missed opportunities, messy breakups. All of it happened there, but so did a lot of healing. Richmond is where I’ve always been able to put the pieces back together. It’s where I found my voice. It’s where I felt like I became myself. It’s my best relationship. 

If we’re friends, and you’re wondering why I didn’t tell you I was leaving Richmond, I’m sorry. Denial of giving up the life I loved and the shame of being poor and depressed told me it would be better not to say anything. But as many people are learning now, silence solves nothing. Know that I’m okay. Getting out of bed isn’t a struggle anymore. I’m grateful and incredibly lucky to have family to support me while I figure things out. I have some job prospects, and I’m looking for a therapist. A lot of things are up in the air. I can’t say where I’ll be in a year, or even in a month. Here’s what I can say: I’m not home right now, but I hope to be again soon.