January 14th, 2022
I just made it through my CDC-recommended quarantine.
I think most of the people who have had covid (and talk about it) share their physical symptoms. Because of this one-dimensional barometer, you’ll find other people minimize what it is that happens when you’re infected.
By that measure, I had sniffles and coughs. I was more exhausted than I have been in recent memory. My breathing is weaker. As a person who is fully vaccinated and boosted, it actually causes me concern to think about what would have happened to me if I wasn’t.
Let’s talk about the other stuff, though.
This week, my anxiety about money destroyed my nerves. I don’t have a salary. I don’t have vacation or sick time. I’ve been dealing with pretty severe loneliness issues that I know are related to grief, and being isolated from everybody actually tore at my sanity. Every day I woke up wondering if I was going to get worse in a way I hadn’t imagined, and briefly before bed every night, I hoped that I would wake up to find out. The exhaustion I had exasperated my feelings of worthlessness, which, as a creative person, is something that is already hard for me to regulate. Scrolling the internet, I got so angry, unthinkably furious, at the people who persist in not caring about others and being ignorant and obstinate, because now, laying in bed and feeling all the things I just described, it felt deeply personal.
I had a real bad week, you guys.
It’s these layers of being sick in a pandemic that are hardly discussed. We say “it’s like a cold” if one person describes their physical symptoms like a cold, but what I described, for me, was not a fucking cold.
And I will joke and I will laugh it off and I will do all of those things that I do, but I also wanted to be honest with you, because that seems to be in short supply lately, along with compassion and that radical empathy our pal Jesus endorsed.
I’ve never meant this more: I hope you’re hanging in there. I hope the people you love are staying well. I hope you’re safe. I hope you know, if you’re feeling any of the things I felt, you are not alone, and we’re going to get to the other side, together.
I’m back in the real world tomorrow. Wish me luck. All my love.
The Den 