You know, most of my life I kept saying that I was so introverted I could be a brain in a jar and be happy, as long as I was hooked up to TV and the internet and books and such.
Now that’s essentially what I am, and even I’m occasionally having fits of anxiety, panic, dread, and ennui.
I was the last one to come to my office. But that only lasted a week before the governor closed all non-essential businesses, including my own. No one needs software developers to be present and accounted for.
As much as I complain about commutes and the vapidity of being in the office and having nothing to do, I worked better when I had a designated place and time to sit my butt down and work. I wrote better when I had a designated place and time to write. I could listen to podcasts on the way in and get educated. I never got tired of either environment because I didn’t spend too much time in either. And the coffee was free.
But now I spend all my time in my basement. I work in my basement. I play video games in my basement. Not only am I not leaving my house, I’m not leaving the room. Saturdays and Sundays don’t mean anything to me anymore. Tuesdays are now the worst part of the week. Mondays aren’t so bad because it’s a change of pace. But Tuesday comes and it’s “I gotta go down to the basement for the next nine hours… again.”
I didn’t really go anywhere, but those few places I did go, I treasured. Just like how I don’t talk much, but when I do, I expect to be heard. Now I can’t get food wherever I want. No more deciding “hmm, should I have Chinese today? Or pizza today? Or gyros? Or a sushi burrito? Or any of the other hundred interesting food kiosks and trucks in the downtown area?”
The things that used to keep me sane are now driving me insane. I go right from my work computer to my home computer — no break in-between. I don’t write consistently anymore because, since my gym closed, my only exercise is taking the dog for a thirty-minute walk. And yet I’m still hungry all the time.
Reading at work? What’s the point anymore? I can watch YouTube and be be on my phone all the time and there’s no one to see me and tut-tut.
And even worse is that it seems there’s nothing I want to do at home. I was about to go out and try and join a D&D Adventurer’s League at a game shop that opened up in my town (Shut up! No, I really was. I would have gotten up the guts. I really would have. Shut up, I would.) but that ship sailed. (How can they call game stores non-essential, I ask you.)
No one in the house wants to play games with me. And when they do, it’s not the games I want to play. I just got Concept and Betrayal at the House on the Hill, and everyone’s like “…meh”. They all want to play Animal Crossing. They’re obsessed with that game–all the fun outfits and furniture and wallpaper and toilets you can get. And I’m like “What is the point? This is just Chore Simulator 2000. There’s no central goal to achieve, no way to make your character stronger, nothing to explore. Stardew Valley is the same game, and it had all of that. I put a hundred hours into that beast before I ran out of stuff to do.”
The only thing I can look forward to anymore is food, and even that’s not so great. I have no motivation to make lunches ahead of time anymore to because I have to plan grocery store stuff two weeks ahead of time instead of just one. Can’t just get my tub of ice cream and Nilla wafers any time I want. Plus now I’m so close to my refrigerator I can eat something immediate and quick. Except that’s all food my family needs. That lunchmeat is for the kids. That ground beef is for tacos tonight. Meals are based on what we can get at the grocery store? Will there be rice? Flour? Pickles? I don’t know.
I haven’t even really drank since quarantine started. Just beer — my liquor cabinet is empty. And it’s not like there’s anything stopping me from getting more — the liquor stores are still open. I just don’t have any motivation to drink anymore. I’m not stressed enough to need to blow off steam or just be bad for a while. Because I’m at home all the time. The video games and ice cream are right there.
So that’s where I’ve been at these past four weeks. They say “If you’re getting out of bed these days, you’re ahead of the game”. And I should be very thankful that I still have job and it’s one I can do from the safety of home and that I am living in a relatively low-risk area. But that doesn’t change the fact that none of this feels good and that I feel helpless to do anything about it. How can you feel positive about the outcome when the president hints that you should drink bleach or pool cleaner or UV light and that right-wingers with assault rifles are parading around my state’s capitol because they want to get a haircut.
