I waited a whole year to sit in a theater again.

After months of watching my favorite theaters go under — hoping that more won’t see the same fate — I was finally able to watch a movie. Popcorn in hand, paired with a crisp fountain soda, I sat in those grimy red chairs once again.

Going to the movies, and feeling that atmosphere, has always had a special place in my heart. Sometimes I would just go to the movies and buy a ticket for something I didn’t really want to see, just because I wanted to sit in a room with strangers, talk afterward about how good or bad it was,make jokes like, “I can’t believe I just spent 15 bucks on that movie” or fall asleep at a midnight showing in my pajamas. 

So when AMC offered a safer in-person experience, I was first in line. They began allowing guests to rent an entire theater for the same price it would be for my family of five to buy tickets on a normal day. On my grand return to the theater, I saw the film “Field of Dreams” — yes the 1989 drama — with my family in a theater all to ourselves. 

It felt so strange yet truly uplifting to return to a place I love, a place so tangible in a world so digital. I was physically giddy, but at the same time, it felt like no time had passed at all between movie theater shutdowns and that moment. It’s like the whole year didn’t happen and this was just another Friday night. 

Movies have the power to transport us to other worlds. But even the singular experience of going to the movies felt like I had entered into a time machine, traveling back to when people still went to movies and didn’t fear a virus. A time when streaming wasn’t an option and you couldn’t rent out an entire theater to yourself. A time when you met old friends only to sit in immaculate silence for two hours. 

I can’t help but feel like this magic is slowly slipping away from us. In October, I wrote an opinion on my love for movie theaters and how much I missed them. The piece was drenched in optimism that theaters would open up again and people would flock to them more than normal, because they’d realize they took them for granted. 

But now, after a year that felt like I was tumbling around in a dryer on high heat, I’m not as hopeful and doe-eyed.

When I saw that ArcLight Cinemas and the Cinerama Dome were closing, I began losing hope. If a historical Hollywood landmark like the Dome can’t stay open, what hope do the rest of the theaters have? The ArcLight, moreover, was my theater. I have countless memories there — memories I may never get to relive if all theaters go under.

Shifting mass interest in something isn’t an easy task. We all know the feeling of our favorite restaurant or store closing. It doesn’t really matter if you loved the place with all of your heart; if there wasn’t major demand for it, it won’t last. 

I am afraid that is where we’re headed. 

Being alone for a year felt like a strange omen of our future. We’re scared of people who aren’t in our “bubble,” and we’ve become too comfortable being buried head-first into our solitude that we don’t even come up for air every now and then to realize it.

I am afraid we have lost touch with the tangible, the tactile. We won’t know what it’s like to feel if we aren’t even there to truly experience life. We won’t know touch if we’re behind a screen, with the only sensation being the cold metal of a laptop. We won’t know how to emote if we can't interact with people and meet new ones. I don’t want to lose this, but it feels more and more like sand in my hands every day.