Fly Rants: That Quarantine Loneliness is Real AF

I love my apartment. I am Dumbo, Brooklyn’s fly girl. I live fly AF, thank you, Jesus. I moved into my one-bedroom apartment in December of last year. I move in silence. I left a dude on read for months and when I finally reappeared, he had no idea that I had moved to a different city. 

You have to make moves on these men. 

With my work schedule from December to March, I could count the number of times I was in my apartment. When the lockdown hit New York in March, I welcomed the downtime. I took a voluntary leave of absence from my job in March and I’ve been in Dumbo ever since. 

I love waking up in luxury. I haven’t had my own apartment for years and this one is the most fabulous of the three Brooklyn apartments that I’ve rented. 

In the last six months of enjoying my apartment:

• I’ve become 2020’s version of a “cat lady” and I am now a plant mom. Congratulations to me. And shoutout to Rooted for partnering with me. I’m documenting my plant mom journey via my IG and they in turn, provided me with plants. Use my code: FLYGIRL for 15%.

• I learned that I clean just like my mama. I used to tease my mom all the time about her obsessively cleaning yet now, I’ll be on Facetime with her while cleaning or sweeping. I understand the serenity of having a clean living space.

• I’ve tapped into my femininity hardcore. From feminine pink decor, bubble baths with almond oil and cinnamon oil, to ultra comfortable bedding. I wanted my space to look and feel like me and I wanted it to be solace from the outdoor world. 

• But even with my little slice of fly in Dumbo, the loneliness of being quarantined still hurts. This quarantine has definitely magnified loneliness. I told myself 2020 was the year that I’ll meet someone. But how Sway? When half of my face is covered with a mask? And I barely go out ‘cause you know, Rona. 

I get that I am alone but not lonely because I have friends and family that love me but even as much of a boss that I am, I’m not too bossy to say that I yearn for a man. 

I feel that some women are embarrassed or too prideful to say that out loud and in turn, they also never say exactly what they want in a man. Sometimes my mouth gets me in trouble or good trouble depending on who it is. I say what I want and what I don’t want. I also tell men when they ain’t it. I let them know when they don’t match me, spiritually, emotionally, or financially. 

Having standards that I won’t deviate from totally ups the loneliness factor. Some days I wish I had a boo to lay with and watch The Umbrella Academy. There are days when I cook and I make too much that I wish I had a man to feed. When the line at Trader Joe’s was 40 plus minutes during lockdown, I definitely wished I had someone to talk to while waiting. I wish I had someone that I could bounce big ideas off of because he dreams just as big. Or someone that I could talk to about the awesomeness of God because he knows God for himself.

Most recently, I was a guest on The Tammi Mac Late Show on Fox Soul. I was on to discuss fashion and Black culture and how we don’t ever get the credit for the trendsetting that we deserve. I was fabulous. I was giving Joy Reid and Charlamagne tha God flavor. It was an awesome experience.

When the show ended, I talked to my parents who had watched and texted with a couple of friends who had also tuned in. They were excited and proud of me but once the conversations ended, a rush of sadness washed over me. I yearned for an in-depth discussion of my first national television appearance or a toast of champagne with someone who is in awe of the rhetoric that I discussed on the show.  

I felt the whisper of “your career won’t keep you warm at night” because it was in having a pivotal moment in my career that I felt loneliness. Loneliness is real and it can be debilitating. Loneliness can stop you in your tracks and it can laugh at you when you can’t open a jar cause you ain’t got no man. It shows up when your friends don’t answer your calls. A certain song can trigger romantic feelings. And too much wine will have you real close to calling someone you know needs to stay right where he’s quarantined. 

Being single and quarantined, I’ve been encouraged not to settle with someone out of desperation. While going through this experience has brought its own challenges, I’d take those any day over the struggle of trying to make it through quarantine with a useless man. Doubly so when kids are involved. 

The pandemic made me realize that I am a complete human being and I want a partner that complements that. I want someone that deeply understands and values the need for autonomy.

What gets me through the real tough spots of loneliness is knowing that I deserve someone who is worth my companionship. It’s me knowing that I have a lot to offer and if I don’t understand and honor my self-worth, I’ll be offering a lot to someone who doesn’t deserve it. And he’ll know it too.

Once you start offering yourself to someone who doesn’t deserve all that you are, you will start to lose yourself. Most people aren’t crazy but they drive themselves nuts by being with someone they should’ve left on read. Or they continuously try to make something work when they should walk away. 

I know how easy it is to fall into the trappings of a sweet talker, a narcissistic, or a well-dressed bum because of loneliness.  It takes strength to pull yourself out of the pit of loneliness. It takes me turning on some Teedra Moses, putting my phone away, and telling myself to continue to mind my black owned business. 

With no end in sight because Trump has no idea what he’s doing and Americans are too trashy and privileged to be inconvenienced by wearing a mask, who knows when society will be back to normal? Post COVID, I’m going to use this pandemic to filter out the anti-maskers. I need to know how his maturity and morality levels were in a pandemic. On future first dates, you better believe I will be asking, “So how did you behave throughout the pandemic?” If a man tells me that they were out partying every weekend. It’s on to the next.

I curve loneliness by keeping myself busy and continuously working on myself. As long as I don’t gain that quarantine fifteen and I attempt to put on clothes other than leggings, then maybe as luck will have it, I’ll meet someone in line at Trader Joe’s. I just have to keep honoring my highest self by not settling ‘cause I’m lonely.