For years now, I’ve been a creature of habit. I like routine; I find it comforting. I have things I do every day. I go to one of my favorite breakfast places. I get to the office, spend the day working. Some days I manage to steal away for lunch with someone special. After work I spend time in the neighborhood I first lived in here in Cincinnati: my old haunt, Clifton. I go to my favorite bars and restaurants. I spend time with friends. And I have something special I do every day of the week. It could be watching a game. Could be a night out with my friends. Maybe a date. Could be something as simple as watching the latest episode of one of my favorite shows on my streaming services. But I have my routines. And every day of the week, I have something to look forward to. Something special that only happens on that very day.

I pride myself on my optimism. And one of the ways I reinforce it is by periodically ticking through the things I’m looking forward to. Whether I’m getting ready to go out, walking into work, getting ready for bed, I’ll go through the list. I’ll stop and think about all the things coming up I’m looking forward to. A big date. Trivia night. A new movie coming out. A new beer release. An important baseball game. A vacation. I always have things coming. I always have a reason to see tomorrow. To look ahead. To want the future to come.

The streets are so empty right now. There’s so little going on. Everyone’s shuttered in. Keeping their distance. Walking briskly past one another. No smiles, no friendly greetings. No hugs or handshakes or kisses on the cheek. It’s like we’ve all forgotten one another exists. Like none of it is real. It’s as though someone looking down on our world hit the “pause” button. And now we wait for them to grab their chips and soda so the show can begin again. We just have no idea how long that will take. And so we wait. Ever on do we wait, as little by little, we lose “normal”.

We humans are social creatures, whether we admit it or not. We all need one another. So we congregate. We seek companionship. We smile at one another like fireflies blinking in the night, hoping for that perfect little blink in response. Living in a major city is often a beautiful, perplexing duality. Until you’ve experienced urban life, you can’t understand how easy it is to sit in a crowded room full of people, and feel alone.

I know, academically, why all of this is necessary. I’ve read enough about epidemiology, seen enough memes and videos about “flattening the curve”. But this sense of isolation still hurts, because we humans are social creatures. We can’t turn off our natures with the flick of a switch. I’m nowhere near as fearful of the virus as I am about what could happen because of it. Rationally or not, I fear if this goes on for too long we might lose some of the best parts of ourselves. That this will become the “new normal”. That we’ll only be driven further and further from one another, propelled ever onward as fear leads to isolation and loss.

I know there are plenty of happily introverted people out there who couldn’t be more okay with all of this. I just wanted to provide a different perspective: the extrovert standing in an empty street, wondering where everyone has gone. The one who doesn’t want to stay home and binge on Netflix. The one who yearns against all odds for a swift return to everyday life.

In times like this, it’s important to remember what makes our species as wonderful as it is: our need to connect. Our ability, and desire, to form bonds. We all enter this world alone. Many of us leave the same way. It’s what we do now, while we’re here, that makes up for it. As long as we’re here, we can reach out, form bonds, touch other lives. We can co-orbit, and navigate this twisted, terrifying, gratifying, beautiful maze of a world that lies around us. So reach out, however you can. Grab hold of those dear to you and don’t let go for anything. Keep those bonds steady and strong. Because some of us are simply not okay. But we can be, so long as we can still hope that once this is over, the music will play again.