Lucy by the Sea

by Elizabeth Strout

Everyone needs to feel important. I thought again about how my mother—my real one—had said this to me one day. And she was absolutely right. Everyone has to feel like they matter. I did not feel that I mattered. Because in a way I have never been able to feel that. And so the days were hard.

We are all in lockdown, all the time. We just don’t know it, that’s all. But we do the best we can. Most of us are just trying to get through.