Isolation

The longer this shit goes on…

So I’ve officially been not working for 6 months now. (Day job, anyway.) And I know I’m not the only one starting to look back at the early days of quarantine with … is this nostalgia? Are you kidding me? But I’ve seen tweets that echo this feeling. The early days, when we all baked bread and watched Tiger King, yeah. (I didn’t bake any bread, but I definitely watched Tiger King because back in 2016 I met someone who had worked for Joe Exotic and told me all sorts of crazy shit about him, some of which was not in the show.)

I want to tell you that it is OK to feel nostalgic about early quarantine.

I’m not going to say that any of this shit was fun, because people are dying. But we had some good times, not because of the massive clusterfuck but despite the massive clusterfuck. We took isolation and unemployment and made … okay, not vacation or even staycation, but sabbatical. We fucking learned things and made things and pissed off that Caren White lady over the yeast.

That seems like twenty years ago now. The months drag on, and all the enthusiastic “I’m gonna get so much done!” posts have disappeared, and even the “Don’t feel pressured to achieve much during this” reminders have dwindled. We are moving through the end of the “Ah, fuck, I’ve accomplished nothing with this time!” phase and into what may be a truly dark time.

Last night I recalled Election Night four years ago, and how when it was over I stared into the fire and just went ahead and had a fucking breakdown. I really, truly hope not to repeat that. Especially in fucking isolation, with so little to show for the past six months of “time off.”

So, look: Don’t be hard on yourself. Don’t feel bad if you feel like March-April was actually a decent time to be alive even though it was a neverending tragedy. Don’t feel bad. You’re still here. You’re a survivor. Ignore survivor’s guilt. (Unless you’re one of the fucks still refusing to wear masks and forego public dining rooms, in that case stop reading anything I write ever and kindly fuck yourself with the nearest sharp object. To own the libs, naturally.) Do something with your time, even if it’s not productive, and most fucking definitely vote.

OK, that’s it.