I said to my therapist today that it’s my time to shine.
I wasn’t really joking, and she didn’t really laugh. Mandate aside, I’ve been living like this where I could for a while. Sure, I’d go out to work, and I am already missing that a little. I miss mornings on the bus with my headphones on, quiet smiles shared with familiar strangers as we mutually agree not to try to make conversation; I miss my wall planner by my desk, and my coworkers’ conversation, and my walk through a medieval gate at the end of every day. I miss being able to pick up a pastry for breakfast on a whim. Unfortunate but true: it’s the little things that kill you.
But most days, that was it. I’d go to work, and I’d come home, and I’d sit down exhausted for an hour or more to recover from the cognitive strain of being out of my flat. I’d take an excruciatingly slow bus across town to therapy, once a week, and then drag myself home at 7pm in order to do absolutely nothing for the rest of the night. I would measure out my social life in coffee spoons, per the ubiquitous theory, weighing every hour of fun and companionship against the certainty of struggle later on. I’ve been spending weekends entirely indoors throughout my adult life. It is my time to shine. Whatever the hell else this is doing, it’s legitimised my lifelong survival strategy in the eyes of the general public.
I used to tell people — medical professionals, mainly — that I wasn’t good at existing in the world. I still think that, sometimes. Increasingly, I think that the world wasn’t built for me. I had to fight, in my previous job, for permission to work from home once a week; even then, only out of term time; even then, only if everyone else was in the office that day. I had to go through the motions of explaining, over and over, why this would help me, and why the alternative would only continue to debilitate me. A NHS counsellor asked me once, during a referral meeting, why I wasn’t crying as I tried to explain my situation. Taken aback, I explained that I didn’t think anyone would take me seriously if I was too obviously distressed. I still don’t think I was wrong about that, but I hadn’t imagined that the inverse would have the exact same effect.
Needless to say, it’s been surreal watching businesses immediately acknowledge the need for remote working, and watching colleagues discover it for themselves. It’s been more surreal, almost, watching old friends and casual acquaintances talk one another through their varying stages of trauma, though I’m not convinced that all of them know that’s what they’re doing. However you’re reacting is okay.
I won’t be able to do this forever. A friend and I had to cancel lunch plans, two Thursdays ago, just as the news was really starting to pick up. We saw each other briefly that afternoon, in the courtyard outside my office; we hugged goodbye, and promised to see each other soon. I will want that, probably sooner than I suspect. It is yet another survival strategy to reject, decisively, the idea that I will never have it back.
But for now — strange as it may seem — I’m doing okay. I am sleeping badly, as usual, and I rearranged my flat over the weekend; I can look out of the window from my bed, now, and see the treetops cresting over strangers’ gardens, soaked through with early-evening sun. I can work from home and pay my rent and send money to my friends who are not so fortunate. The room that circumscribes my safety and my comfort has been doing exactly that for quite a while.
Please stay home if you can.
W