{"id":3783,"date":"2020-04-26T15:03:30","date_gmt":"2020-04-26T19:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/?p=3783"},"modified":"2020-05-09T13:07:37","modified_gmt":"2020-05-09T17:07:37","slug":"hindsights-20-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/2020\/04\/26\/hindsights-20-20\/","title":{"rendered":"Hindsight’s 20\/20"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Our 10-year-old rescue, Ricky, in November 2019.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

By Noah Goldberg<\/em><\/p>\n

Isolation is terrifying.\u00a0 I hate it.<\/p>\n

I don’t need to be out all the time with friends. I am actually quite introverted, but the thought of being trapped without my people is scary.<\/p>\n

When my family moved to Sarasota from Boston in October, I could not have been more excited.\u00a0 85 degree winters, boating and fishing whenever we want to, it doesn’t get much better than that. Plus, right back to Boston once it warms up, which means more boating, beach, fishing, but most importantly, that is my home.\u00a0 That’s where my people are.\u00a0 I get to experience the best of both worlds.\u00a0 What could go wrong?<\/p>\n

Vulnerability forces us to turn to the people we trust the most, and in a time of crisis like right now, that’s never been more true.\u00a0 When I was sent home from college and faced the reality that life wouldn’t be normal, not for a long time, I grew angry.<\/p>\n

Why me. Unfair. Bullshit.<\/p>\n

Yes, I get to be with my family, and I do trust them more than anyone else.\u00a0 In that moment though, none of them could relate to anything I was going through.\u00a0 They’d been used to isolation, living with each other while leaving friends behind in Massachusetts.\u00a0 It is a lot easier to do that later in life with a steady job and a spouse.\u00a0 That is a lot harder when you are 20 years old and are forced into it, suddenly.<\/p>\n

I needed my friends. They were going through the same struggles I was.<\/p>\n

The same struggles I am.<\/p>\n

After being in Florida for a week or two, I tried to talk my parents into letting me drive back to Boston.\u00a0 Shelter in place orders hadn’t materialized anywhere yet, which meant I could’ve been hung out with my friends at that time.\u00a0 And I needed to.\u00a0 Badly.\u00a0 After all, as long as I vigilantly practiced social distancing, six-feet and everything, why did it matter if I was in Florida or Boston?<\/p>\n

The board of directors of the Goldberg family unfortunately didn’t vibe with my pitch and shot it down after a few exchanges of, let’s say, less than formal English.<\/p>\n

Frustration kept building up inside of me.\u00a0 Couldn’t they see that none of them had been put in the same spot I had?<\/p>\n

Weeks passed.\u00a0 Shelter in place orders came to fruition, meaning I wouldn’t have been able to see my friends had I gone back anyways.\u00a0 Hindsight is 20\/20 though, and given the circumstances at that time, I still wouldn’t admit I had been wrong.<\/p>\n

Three weeks pass.\u00a0 My sister wakes me up on Saturday morning, April 11th.\u00a0 Our 10-year-old rescue dog Ricky was having neurological issues, she said.\u00a0 He needed to go to the vet ASAP.<\/p>\n

After taking him for a walk, Ricky seemed totally fine, my sister told us.\u00a0 An hour later, he got down off my parents’ bed and just fell over.\u00a0 He wasn’t hurt, he wasn’t particularly old.\u00a0 He just fell.<\/p>\n

We knew this was serious, but we thought it most realistically was dehydration.\u00a0 He was panting heavily and it’s Florida of course, so it wasn’t exactly chilly outside, even in the late morning.<\/p>\n

Hours later, Ricky had passed away.\u00a0 His heart had filled with fluid, possibly from cancer know one knew about, but even the vet wasn’t really sure why.\u00a0 To find out what the actual issue was causing the fluid to build up, he’d have to make it to Monday when a cardiologist would be available.\u00a0 The chances of that happening were slim, considering he’d need to have the fluid drained, which itself could’ve killed him, or just refilled immediately.<\/p>\n

Isn’t it funny that a dog’s life can be decided if he gets sick on a Friday or a Saturday? Days of the week aren’t a concept to any animals, other than humans of course.<\/p>\n

My heart has hurt for this country, for our planet, for everyone suffering from this pandemic.\u00a0 It didn’t even compare to that Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

Despite stories of despair that suffocate the news, devastating new stats every day of the death tolls and economic impacts, that morning was the hardest I’ve endured during this pandemic.\u00a0 Actually, in years.<\/p>\n

Why him? Unfair.\u00a0 Bullshit.<\/p>\n

But you know what one of my first thoughts was after we returned from the animal hospital?\u00a0 If this coronavirus pandemic didn’t overtake the world, I’d still be at college.\u00a0 I wouldn’t have spent the last month of Ricky’s life with him, every single day.<\/p>\n

It sucks I had to come home.\u00a0 It sucks people are getting coronavirus.\u00a0 It sucks Ricky died, so young and suddenly.\u00a0 It sucks I can’t see my friends.<\/p>\n

I don’t have a conclusion.\u00a0 I don’t have a point or a prayer to preach.\u00a0 I just miss my dog.\u00a0 I miss my friends.\u00a0 I miss my life.\u00a0 But I’m damn glad I didn’t go back to Massachusetts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Noah Goldberg Isolation is terrifying.\u00a0 I hate it. I don’t need to be out all the time with friends. I am actually quite introverted, but the thought of being trapped without my people is scary. When my family moved to Sarasota from Boston in October, I could not have been more excited.\u00a0 85 degree Read more about Hindsight’s 20\/20<\/span>[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4703,"featured_media":3784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[97662],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sarasota-fl"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/files\/2020\/04\/ricky.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7o53H-Z1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4703"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}