Parallel Timelines

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In 2020, I jumped to an alternate timeline. Everything I had known before became somewhat stranger, uncanny, the familiar suddenly not quite familiar. I began to lose trust and safety in my community, my family, and myself. I wondered if it was the beginning of the apocalypse. I wondered how we would survive -- any of us. It started with an earthquake.

We lived in southeastern Idaho, and I had never experienced an earthquake in my twenty-five years. I was home with my partner and our two dogs. There had been news of the virus spreading in places far from us, but it seemed distant and inconsequential. Nothing seemed to touch us in our rural, isolated patch of Idaho desert. Things were as they'd always been and always would be. We had just made dinner -- mini Hawaiian sliders, kettle chips, and orange soda -- and had settled in to eat when the soda in the bottles began to ripple and shake. The dogs lifted their heads and tucked their tails. We both stared at the soda, then shifted our gazes out the window to the dry Lost River Valley, where we watched the land move in a way that didn't seem to make sense. I felt the shift internally as the earth shifted in kind. Something inexplicable had changed.

Soon, people began to talk of the apocalypse; swarms of locusts (or murder hornets), natural disasters, plague, conspiracy, political unrest, riots. It was global; it was in our backyard. It was far out of our control and too close to home. And though wouldn't know it for a few more months, I was pregnant. I had never planned to be a mother, but I suddenly had to grapple with bringing a daughter into this unstable, dangerous landscape.

The following week, my partner was laid off from work. Uncertainty grew. Lockdown protocols began, but they were ignored by most of our community. I continued going to work at my public-facing job, afraid each day that my unborn child and I would be infected with the mystery virus by the many, many people in my community who didn't believe it existed, who ridiculed me for wearing a mask, who thickly associated the taking of health precautions with opposing political ideology, compromised morality, and poor intelligence.

My partner began to experience inexplicable health concerns: sudden, severe bouts of vertigo, rapid heart rate, weak pulse, fainting spells, inability to digest food, and days-long migraines. It was chronic and debilitating, preventing him from seeking consistent work. None of the health providers he met with was able to identify the source of these issues, citing either anxiety or sympathetic pregnancy and sending him home. He worried he was dying of an undetectable disease. I worried that nothing would make sense ever again.

When I was seven months pregnant, our landlord made the decision to turn our home into a vacation rental. This left us to either pay highly increased rent or find a new home. However, over a few short months, the cost of housing had nearly doubled in our community, and we could no longer afford to live there. Our only option was to move out of state to live with family.

My daughter was born healthy, though I gave birth alone because the hospital would not allow visitors. A couple of months later, in our sick and sleep-deprived states and while navigating new parenthood, we packed all we knew and took the leap. We came out alive on the other side. Nothing was as it had been, but we were hopeful of new opportunities. Trump left office. The vaccine was developed and distributed. My partner found ways to cope with his mystery illness and found meaningful work. We both returned to school. Things moved on, forever changed but not destroyed.

But now, in 2024, I've jumped timelines again. It started when I swallowed a pill of Iodine-131, a radioactive isotope of iodine meant to kill the thyroid cells in my body that had become cancerous. Something shifted at that moment, and each event since has eerily mirrored the events of 2020. I once again find myself feeling that sense of strangeness, that uncanny reality, that loss of trust in the self and the other.

I am unexpectedly pregnant with a second daughter, and the pregnancy is high-risk because of its proximity to the radioactive iodine treatment. My partner works, but I have struggled to get back into the workforce. There have been sudden personal conflicts with the family that have supported us, and we are now faced with finding a new home within the next six months. My physical and mental health have declined. And as of this week, we are living with the nearly unfathomable reality of a second Trump presidency. I try not to attribute unneeded significance to perceived patterns, but it's hard to ignore the parallels between then and now.

Each shift feels like stepping into an uncanny mirror: familiar yet alien. I wonder if these parallels suggest a lesson or are simply the chaotic rhythm of life. In the midst of it all, I hold on to the small victories -- the ways we’ve learned to cope, to rebuild, to love fiercely in uncertain times. Despite everything, we are still here. I hope that this time, the other side will bring more than just survival: it will bring peace.

As I sit with the weight of both past and present, I am reminded of what remains constant: the love I carry for my children, the strength I find in my partner, and the quiet resolve to face whatever version of reality lies ahead. Maybe we all live in parallel timelines, revisiting familiar struggles in different forms over and over again. For now, I’ll keep moving forward, one hand in each of my daughters', one uncertain step at a time.

#covid, #idaho, #rural, #family, #employment, #health, #housing, #politics, #utah, #hope, #despair, #struggle, #pregnancy

self

2024-11-11