We are living in trying times right now, and each day the COVID updates seem to be moving in the wrong direction. I know this not permanent and with vaccinations underway I have high hopes that we can get through this.
Being positive can help, but sometimes it is OK to feel sad, scared, and frustrated. This week I really started to feel isolated and lonely, and it reminded me of another time in my life when I had similar feelings.
Fifteen years ago, I graduated from journalism school and I packed up and left Victoria and headed to Pincher Creek, Alta. to be a newspaper reporter for the small town. I was told that moving to a small town to get a start in the field of journalism was inevitable.
I was 25 at the time and most of the young people my age had left the town, and those who were there were married with children.
I was working my dream job, but I was lonely. I had a decent two-bedroom apartment overlooking a golf course, but no one ever came over.
I actively tried to make friends, and the only one I made was a lonely reporter working four towns away. I joined a Taekwondo club operating out of a school gym, I attended community events, and I would go to the pub every time a hockey game was on hoping to find someone to chat with.
One night I was having a particularly tough evening. I’d gone several days without speaking to anyone. Up until then I’d never had a hard time making friends.
I chatted with a friend back here in Victoria who told me that I should go the movie theatre, and even if I didn’t speak with anyone that at least I’d be around other people.
I had the goal of going to the 7 p.m. show, and I couldn’t get myself motivated to leave my home. I moved my goal to the 9 p.m. show and got ready to go out.
When I arrived at the theatre a young teenager at the ticket window and sold me my ticket. After she handed me the ticket, she met me at the concession counter and sold me a bottle of water.
I headed into the theatre and she headed upstairs to start the film; it was Alpha Dog.
As I walked into the theatre, there was not one person in the there.
I sat in the theatre all alone watching the film and feeling awful knowing that if I wasn’t there the young teenage girl could have gone home early that night. Also, I’d already seen the movie.
As this was happening, I thought to myself this is going to be a good story to tell one day. Even when I was feeling down in the dumps, I could see the humour in the story. It was so sad, it was hilarious.
I stayed in Pincher Creek for a few more months and headed back to Victoria. I worked some random jobs and I waited to find a journalism job, which did eventually happen.
Sometimes it feels like COVID-19 is never going to end and our social lives are perpetually on hold, but there are better days coming. We need to make the best of it right now, and if we can, let’s try and find some humour in the setbacks as they come.
charla@makola.bc.ca
Charla Huber is the director of communications and Indigenous relations for M’akola Housing Society.
