Connection Without A Connection

We have all been in ZOOM meetings and I have to say I hate them and like them
at the same time. Have you ever been in one when someone just turns off their camera
and leaves? It’s not fun, but sometimes when you and your friends are all together and
able to talk in comfort it is a nice experience. Not to say that in-person communication is
bad, I love meeting friends in person, but during COVID it was the only source of
connection I had with other humans. This story is not about how dreadful it was, it is
about how my group of friends still came together instead of staying apart from each
other.
The sun always hangs lazily and brightly in the sky waking me up to another
seemingly endless day. Not an especially good or bad day, just one in the long
stretching months of a pandemic that last spring I thought was a joke. Just another long
boring day of staring at my bright computer screen and looking at the school ZOOM
meeting that lasts for hours. No one looked alive, they just looked through the screen
with tired eyes waiting for it to be over. Sometimes I would just be there watching, barely
aware of what was going on, just waiting for it to end. After that, however, my day was
still a slow trail toward nowhere. Then around some time long forgotten I went back to
that sad old computer in the corner and pushed the little blue button to start it up.

It was a small thing, only a few times a month at the most. I and several friends
occasionally found time to meet each other over ZOOM. We needed these few minutes
or hours we could spare to ease the pain of the Isolation imposed on us. These
meetings were usually very long and we would just talk and talk. We had some of the
deepest conversations ever in our friendships and it made the pain of the pandemic
lessen during these times. We did many other things than just talk, we played DND, and
even helped a friend with his Youtube channel like the time when he needed an idea for
a video and I helped him find one and how my voice is somewhere on the internet in the
background of that video. Afterward, I felt a little hope trickle into my day, it made me
feel like we had a chance to get through this. The stories and thoughts we shared
usually had little importance but they meant a lot to me. The one thing we talked about
the most was how much we missed each other over the pandemic.
These meetings held so much significance even when we had meaningless
conversations, it helped break up the slow progression towards nowhere and the small
talk of “hey”, “ok” and “sure” with my brother and family. No honest communication at all.
We had nothing to say to each other nothing at all, ever.
 In middle school, you are supposed to be interacting with people, making friends
and enemies. You were supposed to meet new people and gain new experiences. None
of us got that chance, we were isolated at home we had no options. I did nothing, I met
no one, and I have never felt more alone. The Isolation that was broken by only a few
short hours on the rare occasion that we could meet was so profound that it made the
days blend and drained the color from the world. I ended every day after those meetings
without the crushing weight of the pandemic and with a light feeling of hope.

As many things are in the world, the meetings slowed after we went back to
school and eventually we just stopped. Not because we disliked them but because we
no longer needed them. Nowadays as the pandemic is now moving away from us but
still not quite over I still feel a want to continue the Zoom meetings not because I need it
anymore but because I miss the conversations, the faces through the grainy screen,
and the crackle of the Audio playing through my headphones. I feel that even though
the pandemic is over and we can once more go outside with others we still don’t
connect the same way we used to before this all started. I still yearn to listen once more
to my friend's thoughts and feelings and the deep conversations of days past.