Daydreaming was once a normal part of my daily routine.

But recently I’ve begun to realize the unhealthy concoction that results from unlimited moments of surfeit overthinking. It is not just unhealthy, but maybe even a bit lethal.

The realization of the danger comes to me when reality sits early in my twenty-fourth year. In my dreams, I once could see ambition, a fulfilling career, a loving spouse paired with travel and adventures. But in plain reflection, I’ve been a college graduate for a year, jobless, still living at home, and perpetually single (though not free of the colloquial reality of unrequited love).

No one ever told me that reality can feel so much like an assault.

January of 2020 feels like a hundred years ago, when champagne was illicit and jazz echoed from lit up apartment windows and sparkling clubs. It was a different world, before quarantine dubbed the lips and lives of the average American, before masks became an accessory.

Like so many other hopeful twenty-something’s, I was compelled to bring the vivacity of the 1920’s to this screen loving era, a generation deprived.

But spring came. A virus accompanied. We depend on screens now more than ever.

What kind of mask would Daisy Buchanan wear?

I seem to have lost myself, I tell my mom as she finds me laying on the couch one dreary afternoon. I confess I don’t believe in fairy tales anymore, or happy endings. And I cry. Not just at night, before I fall asleep on silk pillowcases, but openly now, because my family knows my dilemma and I don’t have to conceal my emotions.

Because what is life if the last five years were spent building something that would merely prove to be an illusion? If love life consists of pining an idea that will most likely never come to pass? If we didn’t exist in a crestfallen economy where having a bachelor of arts was equivalent to a high school diploma?

What would the world be like if it could just be?

My friend is pregnant with her first child—a girl.

Another starts her own business.

Another anticipates her spring wedding.

I scroll through aesthetic images and drink another cup of coffee, not allowing myself to daydream but rather entertain thoughts of a life never lived, that would never come to be. I wonder how people pair up so easily, how people become satisfied in routine jobs, how people can live in the same small town year after year and not get bored.

How am I so young and already so bored?

It is Sunday, late afternoon, mid-November. I empty the dishwasher—a small mundane task, but my mother appreciates it. What’s a rent-free daughter to do?

Salmon plates, blue china, mason glasses go to their appropriate places and I recall the weekend spent walking rainy small town streets with friends. Sunlight now pours through windows and bounces off the cracks in the walls. I admire the warmth, and think I should bake some bread. Everyone else in the family has a job; they will appreciate it.

I sift flour, watch bubbles rise with living yeast, and think about the message I’d scribbled down in the back of my Bible in mid October. I’d just managed to re-read it this morning, on a day of rest, when it might resonate stronger.

When the night is the darkest, sing the loudest.

I wonder if nurses sing down hospital corridors. If a patient who struggles to breathe would dare use a precious breath to hum a tune. I think of California churches that still worship. I remember the homeless man who sang me his poetry in exchange for a cup of coffee.

I fill the dishwasher now, softly singing that it is well with my soul, even if the world is not. Even if circumstances prove differently. Even if dreams cascade and darkness prevails and is upon us, globally and individually.

McKenna Vietti lives in Northern California, student/assistant by day, writer by night. She holds a BA in Psychology and is pursuing a MA in Counseling Psychology. Though she is passionate about the mental health field, it is her dream to make a living as a writer. She has written for Dusk Magazine and currently writes for The Life, an online faith based publication. You can find more of her work on Twitter @mckennajane21, Instagram @mckenna_jaine, and on her website at mckennajaine.wordpress.com