covidesolation

How am i holding up under quarantine? Inshelteration, shall we say?

Cracks are starting to show.

I live alone in a pandemic. Not literally true, but true enough, as i have almost no contact with my housemates that could be described as humyn. An overstatement, perhaps...but i haven't touched another humyn for the better part of a year.

At first, i observed that things weren't so very different from normal life in this culture of alienation, in which i hadn't had sex or serious cuddling in two years. The main difference was psychological - feeling cut off from possibility was a punishing weight. Where there's life, there's hope, but that was suddenly in short supply.

At least in the old days, i got the occasional hug. Has it affected my health deleteriously, to be without even that? Maybe.

My energy was fine for many months. My creativity was bursting, as i tore through projects i'd put off. It was, however, easy to grow weary of online calls and events. The two-dimensionality almost made me feel worse, not better. To say nothing of seeing others with loved ones (or at least tolerated ones).

How often have my thoughts turned to the holocaust of irreparable trauma in our culture's prison system, where we casually inflict far worse on millions of humyns every single day?

After a few months, the insomnia i'd had touches of in recent years, returned. It came and went, for weeks at a time. Yesterday was the worst, as my after-lunch nap stretched to two hours, and once i awoke couldn't recover from fuzzy-headed inertia. It was the first time i've ever been almost incapable of motivating myself to do my daily music practice. I pushed myself outside and ran. It didn't help.

I've been able to observe my own impatience with others. There's an edge, a curtness that i don't seem quite able to control. It's slight enough that perhaps no one's noticed...but it's there.

Have i embraced escapist behavior? Not as obviously as for many, but yes. I haven't added new behaviors, nor relapsed into sweet sugar surrender, but...there's been the occasional salt/fat chip indulgence in the middle of the night.

My indulgence in movies and shows has increased a bit. An extra episode at the end of the day...maybe two, on insomniacal nights.

My strongest escapist response has been the hunting behavior that came to life when retail stores re-opened. I've spent a few hundred dollars chasing CDs.

Am i sliding into depression? It's hard to say...my fuzzy-headed inertia would certainly be a by-product of insomnia, but it's probably foolish to think that's the whole reason (or that insomnia and depression can be separated cleanly).

I need to get some genuine humyn contact, some love and physical intimacy, into my bubble. If i can't, i'm flirting with significant health degradation. Ghost headaches, a sickened response to stress...these are my occasional companions already.

Calling the universe...

Calling the universe...

Help?

And the crickets chirp...