I don't want to die and people not know the things I'm interested in
Five years after the world locked down, three single Black women — a therapist, a lawyer-turned-artist, and a nonprofit leader — have emerged from pandemic isolation not merely intact, but transformed. What began as compound crisis — disproportionate death, economic precarity, and the particular loneliness of grieving without ritual — became, for each of them, an unexpected reckoning with authenticity. Their stories suggest that enforced stillness, however painful, can crack open the distance between the life one is living and the life one is meant to live.
- Black communities bore the pandemic's sharpest edges — triple the Covid death rate, locked out of relief funds, essential workers exposed while others sheltered — and these three women felt every one of those pressures personally.
- Grandmothers died in hollowed-out funerals, a father succumbed to cancer, a friend was lost too soon — grief accumulated without the rituals that normally absorb it, leaving wounds that corporate ambition could no longer paper over.
- Each woman reached a breaking point: one quit law after years in federal work, another abandoned a corporate salary and benefits she'd always counted on, a third built a mental health practice from scratch rather than return to a commute that no longer made sense.
- The pivot was rarely clean — unemployment checks, salary cuts, fifty-hour weeks, and months of drift preceded every breakthrough — but the disruption forced each woman to ask what she actually wanted before it was too late.
- Five years on, all three credit the pandemic not with giving them answers, but with stripping away the noise long enough to hear the questions they had been avoiding.
When the world locked down in March 2020, Jordan Madison was twenty-five, splitting her time between a Maryland commute and a part-time Instacart gig while pursuing her therapist's license. The first weeks felt like relief. By late April, relief had curdled into monotony — every day bleeding into the next. She retreated to New York to shelter with her mother and grandmother, watching the country convulse over racial violence while feeling the particular tension of wanting to march and needing to protect the people keeping her safe. What she held onto was gratitude: so many people were losing everything, and her life, at least, was still intact. She would go on to launch Therapy Is My JAM, a virtual mental health practice.
Kailyn Townsend was months into a law clerkship at the Small Business Administration when grief arrived in waves. Her maternal great-grandmother died in April 2020, her paternal grandmother in June. She made it to one funeral — distanced, stripped of warmth — and missed the other entirely when her flight was canceled during the Floyd protests. The job search after her clerkship stretched painfully long. In that drift, she began writing poetry, and then discovered that both grandmothers had carried artistic dreams — piano, verse — that they never pursued. The revelation felt like a summons. After four years in federal work, she quit law and moved back to Memphis to find her way into the creative arts, determined not to die with her own passions unknown.
Napiya Nubuya had moved to Atlanta just before the pandemic, drawn by the city's energy. When the world closed, her salary was cut by a quarter, her rent rose, and she had no community nearby. She moved back to South Carolina in the fall of 2020, and remote work gave her unexpected freedom — she traveled to Tanzania, Kenya, Arizona, New Mexico, calling it her own Eat, Pray, Love. Then loss arrived again: a close friend and nonprofit colleague died of cancer, and in early 2023, her father died of stage four stomach cancer after she'd taken leave to care for him. Burned out and grieving, she could not return to corporate life. Instead, she stepped fully into leading Next IT Girl, the nonprofit she'd founded in 2015 to connect girls of color with technology careers — a calling she now realized she had spent years running from.
All three women describe the pandemic not as something that broke them, but as the pressure that finally clarified what mattered. The deaths were real, the economic fear was real, the isolation was real. But the enforced pause also created space — to grieve, to question, to say no to expected paths and yes to the ones that had always been waiting.
When the world locked down in March 2020, Jordan Madison thought it would last a month. She was twenty-five, commuting from Silver Spring, Maryland, to her job in Bethesda, working part-time at Instacart while pursuing her license as a clinical marriage and family therapist. The first two weeks felt like a gift—no bus rides, no rushing. By late April, when it became clear the pause would stretch indefinitely, the gift curdled into something else. "Every single day was the same day," she would later say. "All the days started to blend together."
For single Black women across the country, the pandemic arrived as a compound crisis. Black Americans died from Covid at three times the rate of white Americans, concentrated among essential workers in transportation, healthcare, grocery stores, and meat processing plants. Unemployment spiked in Black communities. Small business owners found themselves locked out of relief funding. But beneath the statistics were three women whose stories reveal how isolation, loss, and economic precarity became the strange soil from which new lives would grow.
Madison eventually retreated to New York, quarantining with her mother and grandmother through June. She watched from their home as the country convulsed over the murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd. She wanted to march. She also needed to protect the people sheltering her. The contradiction—wanting to act, needing to stay safe—became its own kind of isolation. But she also felt something else: gratitude. "So many people died in isolation," she said. "I just remember being really, really grateful that, yeah, this sucks, but my life is not being torn apart the way that other people were."
Kailyn Townsend, thirty years old and a Howard University Law School graduate, was months into a clerkship at the Small Business Administration when the pandemic hit. She had just begun to grieve. Her maternal great-grandmother died in April 2020. Her paternal grandmother died in June. She made it to one funeral, but it was hollowed out—everyone distanced, the rituals stripped away. She missed the other entirely, her flight canceled during the George Floyd protests. "There was a lot going on that year, and I was very isolated," she said. After her clerkship ended, the job search stretched on. Unemployment checks kept her afloat, but the uncertainty gnawed. It was during this period of drift that Townsend discovered something unexpected: she began writing poetry. She learned that both grandmothers had harbored artistic dreams—piano, poetry—that they never pursued. The knowledge struck her like a calling. After four years in federal government work, she quit. She moved back to Memphis and began searching for a position in the creative arts. "The catalyst was the deaths of those matriarchs in my family," she explained. "They left without any or many people knowing that they had an artistic or a creative side. I don't want to die and people not know the things that I'm interested in."
Napiya Nubuya had arrived in Atlanta just over a year before the pandemic, intoxicated by the city's energy. She loved Midtown, loved the scooters, loved being outside and trying new things. Then the world closed. Her employer cut her salary by twenty-five percent. Her rent climbed by hundreds of dollars. She had no friends nearby and no community. She found a new job, but it demanded fifty-hour weeks as technology became essential infrastructure. The mental strain accumulated. At thirty years old, she made a decision: she moved back to South Carolina in the fall of 2020, back to family and roots. Remote work gave her an unexpected gift—she traveled to Arizona, New Mexico, Tanzania, and Kenya, places she'd always wanted to see. "I felt like this was my Eat, Pray, Love," she said. "I had the independence to create the spaces and opportunities I wanted to be in."
Then came the deaths that would reshape everything. In December 2022, Nubuya took leave to care for her father, who had stage four metastatic stomach cancer. He died in January 2023. Months earlier, a close friend and member of her nonprofit had died of cancer. Burned out and grieving, Nubuya couldn't return to corporate work. Instead, she stepped fully into leadership of Next IT Girl, the nonprofit she'd founded in 2015 to introduce girls of color to technology careers. She had never imagined herself as an entrepreneur. She'd been content with a paycheck and benefits. But looking back, she realized she'd been running from her calling.
Five years after the world stopped, three women had remade their lives. Madison launched a virtual mental health practice called Therapy Is My JAM. Townsend left law for the creative arts. Nubuya left corporate America for nonprofit leadership. The pandemic had been terrifying—deaths in isolation, funerals stripped of ritual, economic collapse. But the enforced pause had also created space. Space to grieve differently. Space to ask what actually mattered. Space to say no to the life that was expected and yes to the one that called. "The pandemic taught me, no regrets," Nubuya said. "Do what you feel, and take chances. You can get back up, but don't take your last breath with any regrets."
Citações Notáveis
Every single day was the same day. All the days started to blend together.— Jordan Madison, on pandemic isolation
The catalyst was the deaths of those matriarchs in my family. I don't want to die and people not know the things that I'm interested in or the things that I want to put out into the world.— Kailyn Townsend, on leaving law for creative arts
The pandemic taught me, no regrets. Do what you feel, and take chances. You can get back up, but don't take your last breath with any regrets.— Napiya Nubuya, reflecting five years later
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does it matter that these were single Black women specifically? Why not just say "three women"?
Because the pandemic hit Black communities differently—higher death rates, more essential workers, less access to relief funds. And because single women without partners had to navigate all of that alone, without someone to share the burden or the decision-making. The isolation was structural, not just emotional.
All three of them left stable jobs or careers. That's a big risk. What made them willing to take it?
Loss. Grief. They each lost people—grandmothers, a father, a friend—and those deaths forced them to ask what they were actually doing with their time. When you watch someone die without pursuing what they loved, it changes your calculus about what's worth staying for.
Madison said she felt grateful her life wasn't being "torn apart" like others. That's a strange thing to feel grateful for during a pandemic.
It's the weight of proximity. She was sheltering with her mother and grandmother, watching the country burn over police violence, wanting to act but needing to protect them. She was grateful not because things were good, but because they could have been catastrophically worse. That's the reality for a lot of people—not happiness, but the absence of total collapse.
Nubuya's story seems different. She actually traveled during the pandemic. That sounds almost privileged.
It was, in a way. She had remote work and savings. But she also had to leave a city she loved, take a salary cut, work fifty-hour weeks, and then watch her father die. The travel wasn't a vacation—it was her trying to grab something for herself while everything was falling apart. The privilege was real, but so was the desperation.
What's the through-line? What connects these three stories?
Permission. The pandemic gave them permission to stop pretending. To stop doing what was expected and start doing what mattered. Townsend's grandmothers never got that permission. These three women did. And they're not taking it for granted.