1. There are four water damage rings on the ceiling of my bedroom. Two are the color of dark toast and they get increasingly lighter as they go, fading into the worn, off-white paint. It’s a color that isn’t beige, nor white, nor cream. It’s a dirtier blend of all three, really, and the rings seem to belong there. If this was an aesthetics post on Instagram, it’d be hashtagged with #GrungeLife.
2. When one is changing their pajamas as often as I am (there is only so much dog hair that I can take), there is an obscenely larger amount of laundry than there ever was when I was going out into the real world. Apparently when one can no longer switch between wearing the same pair of jeans and leggings every day for a week, laundry piles up quickly. Who knew living continuously in your living space equates to much more work in that living space? It was much easier to simply be a shadow moving in and out of my home, leaving behind only glimmers of a trace (a spare dish in the sink, a forgotten sock in the hall, fingerprints on the window). It was much less work existing rather than living.
3. Habits must still be formed in quarantine. I have found a schedule, as rudimentary and arbitrary as it may seem. It includes coffee in the morning, family socializing, (possibly) homework, (most definitely) a nap, play time with the dogs, ceiling-staring-with-occasional-pondering, and copious amounts of food. There is comfort in routine. Normal rests in routine.
4. My house has memories that I don’t. I can see indents on the walls that I was never a part of creating and stains on the carpet I don’t know the causes of. It remembers movements at night that I don’t recall making. I’ll settle into bed and hear the resettling of spots I stepped on the old staircase throughout the day. If it could talk, would it tell me that it knows me better than I know myself?
5. The dripping of a faucet can quickly turn into a musical beat if you let it. “Don’t worry…[drip] about a thing…[drip] ‘cause every little thing…[drip] is gonna be alright…[drip].” Why is it impossible to let silence just be silence?
6. When the only person you can sit with is yourself, you learn the cadence of your own inner voice quickly. It wasn’t that I never knew myself … I’d like to think I knew myself better than anyone, but it seems different now. I know what thoughts of mine to trust and which ones should be ignored for being blatant lies (“I really want to gorge myself on chocolate icing” vs. “I really want to relax and bake something,” for instance). It’s annoying being so in-tune with myself without the opportunity to break away, to distract myself. Is that the true test of all of this? How long can one sit with themselves until they’re forced to love them again?
7. The physical space I live in must say some interesting things about me; Albert Camus’ The Plague splayed open and upside down on the floor by my bed (“no bedside table … clearly she’s poor”), all four of The Golden Girls Pop!Funko figurines (“money waster”), a giant white board filled end to end with writing (“neurotic or brilliant?”), a dog grooming brush on the desk (“dog mom”), and a liquid-stitched rip on the bed’s comforter (“single”). Maybe the entire space reads as a hermit’s guide to being a functioning member of a graduate program.
8. When hummed enough to oneself, it becomes clear that there is a section of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” for every part of the day: Waking up (pre-coffee): “caught in a landslide, no escape from reality” Waking up (post-coffee): “any way the wind blows doesn’t really matter to me” Attempting to do any kind of school-related work: “I sometimes wish I’d never been born at all” Mid-existential crisis (post-work attempt): “I don’t wanna die” Getting work done: “I need no sympathy” Afternoon lull (post-getting some work done): “Nothing really matters, anyone can see” Staring out the window and zoning out: “I see a little silhouette of a man”
Having to go out to buy essential items: “Sends shivers down my spine” Coming back from essential trips, convinced I have COVID-19 after I cough once: “Too late, my time has come”
Doing one at-home workout: “Body’s aching all the time”
Nighttime anxiety: “I’m just a poor boy, nobody loves me”
Nighttime anxiety (post-two glasses of wine): BISHMILLAH!
9. The sounds that come in from my bedroom window have become the new background noise. I don’t reach for the remote anymore to turn on old episodes of A&E’s Hoarders while I write. Instead, I lose myself in the sounds of birds, the rustling of leaves, and my dog barking at the squirrels who terrorize him in the yard. They’re simpler sounds but not quaint or nostalgic like 18th-century novels might suggest. It’s more complicated than that. It’s more nuanced… They’re signifiers of a life outside of four walls.
10. I am hesitant. For the first time in my life, presented opportunities no longer seem inviting. It’s not fear or even anxiety keeping me from taking chances, it’s the knowledge that taking a chance in today’s world comes with more unwanted possibilities.