Maryland Dispatch: 7,000 Miles From Home and Yearning for Family

A few days ago, I sat on the floor of an empty room, gasping for air between sobs as my frantic mother tried to calm me down from thousands of miles away.

It wasn’t working.

Frenzied thoughts rushed through my head at a speed with which my body struggled to keep up. I felt like I was underwater, or being choked, or maybe it was a combination of the two. I was sweating but shivering at the same time. I couldn’t speak; I felt paralyzed. I was experiencing my first panic attack.

I hung up the phone.

When my classes went remote, I tried not to read too much into it, praying it would be a temporary thing. But I had a dreading sense I was experiencing the calm before the storm.

When the chaos began to unfurl, I told myself to stay positive. It was hard. Each passing day of isolation brought with it more cases of COVID-19. As the number of cases grew, the streets got quieter. Gone were the construction sounds that woke me up every morning, the loud conversations in passing, the angry traffic. The hustle and bustle of New York, the city I’d made my home, had faded.

In its place, an eerie silence lingered.

Yet, the cases continued to grow. Within days, Columbia University had limited or shut down activity on campus, cancelled graduation ceremonies and forced its community into a new routine of calls on bright computer screens.

My parents cancelled their trip from Mumbai to New York City as India went on lockdown. It was a bitter disappointment — they’d missed my undergraduate graduation a year before too. They have sacrificed a lot for my education and it hurts that they can’t see me cross the finish line.

I don’t know when I’ll see them next.

Although I desperately want to be with my family, I can’t leave the United States. The risk is simply too high. My grandparents live with my parents and I don’t want to take any chances. Because I was an international student awaiting a visa extension, I knew there was also a chance I wouldn’t be able to reenter the country. I tried to content myself with seeing my loved ones on a screen — so close yet so far away.

Since then, a lot has changed. I’ve moved out of my apartment and bid a temporary adieu to New York City. As I write this, I begin my nineteenth day in quarantine. Outside my room I hear birds chirping, ushering in spring. The blue skies and leafy trees silently torture me, coaxing me to resume the life I did a mere two weeks ago.

But for me, the life I lived is over. From here on out begins a new state of existence. It’s one that I’m still getting used to.

Originally published on Columbia University’s Medium page.