Pan(dem)ic! at the Disco: Covid Summer 2.0 (an update on my headspace)

Well, well, well, would you look at that, LA County. Reimplementing your mask mandate already? Almost like we shouldn’t have opened up our doors so widely so soon. Here we are, pandemic summer part 2. Not sure how long this go-around will last, but I don’t really mind locking down again. I know so many people who, even vaccinated, are still at risk, and I really like staying home with my TV and my streaming accounts. Especially if it’s going to do a little good for other people.

It took me quite a bit of time for the magnitude of constant staying home to hit me. Not because I don’t already love staying home, but it was the weight of all the extraverts’ need to be but inability to be social slowing pressing down on the rest of us. Even when I spent a month in Texas, where “oh, we had a horrible lockdown!” meant you were kind of supposed to wear a mask for six weeks, I still spent most of my time at home, not socializing. Not all of it, I admit, but most of it. Even when we did go out, I was pushing for take out meals and no interaction with people outside our family.

Can’t tell you how much Italian ice and custard I got while I was there, but it was a lot. I love drive-thru dessert.

But alas, the cabin fever did hit, as our teen angst king John Green once said, slowly and then all at once. It really did end up whacking me like a ton of bricks. Made it all too easy to retreat into my brain and into my shell. In some ways I was more creative than I’d ever been. In others, I was drowning in nothingness. My thoughts are always so loud and demanding and demeaning, I didn’t know they could get any louder, but pandemic summer found a way.

Remember when we, as a society in the 1980s, thought that A New Hope, brand new space western by George Lucas, was going to be it? None of this Star Wars Episode Whatever. Just simply A New Hope. And then the tidal wave swallowed us all whole and gave us the rest of them? And then the real rest of them? And then the real, real rest of them? Yeah, this summer is feeling a little bit Empire Strikes Back-y to me. Praying to every god and greater power I know of that we can leave it at that and not have a Return of the Jedi round next year.

It’s all hurting my brain. My wires keep short circuiting, and I know you’re all thinking it: shut up, C-3PO. I will, I promise. When I proofread this as soon as I’ve had more than a 3-hour night’s sleep, I will weed out all the weird shit.

Basically, I’m begging you: get vaccinated if you can, mask up, protect yourself and your loved ones. It’s not political.

As I’m heading back into this masking-era (not that I wasn’t still masking anyway), I’m thinking about all the ways I tried to keep myself busy last year, besides running away to my parents’ house, which I already did for the second time. The movies I finally sat down to watch, the shows I started, the books I read, the book I wrote, the things I baked. I felt so naive then, but these truly did bring me joy when all hell was breaking loose outside my door.

Last summer was volatile in a lot of ways, and I’ve changed a lot. I’m significantly louder about politics and social issues, my depression and anxiety have morphed a bit, and I’ve shifted a lot of priorities regarding my relationships. I’ve had a lot of arguments and a lot of good conversations. There have been lots of tears. Lots of tears. I’ve also fallen in love with many, many figments of my imagination.

Last summer, I hoped but had low expectations for a freer second half of 2021. Considering how cavalier we were in the beginning and how quickly that got shut down, I really wanted us to be able to be better. But people are more selfish than I give them credit for, and here we are.

It’s difficult to figure out where COVID stands. Some places are closing again but concerts are still happening. They’re telling us to mask up again, even if we’re vaccinated but vaxxed people are going mask free much of the time anyway. And un-vaxxed or never-will-get-vaxxed people? Forget it. With case numbers going back up and doctors I know begging people to get their vaccinations, it’s hard to watch people I know not give a crap. I understand that if you’re immunocompromised, those people want you to just stay home so they can run free, but how self-centered do you have to be to really believe that? It’s all upsetting me to say the least.

I just bought three more masks. I still don’t leave my house without one. I don’t want to do things in crowds. I don’t like not knowing the people I’m around. And you know what? I’m worried about my mental health. Things were beginning to look up, and I let myself get a little hopeful, but needless to say those hopes have been dashed. 

Here we are, August. My favorite month of the year next to October. My birthday is coming up (happy Leo Szn!!), I’ve been blasting my favorite Taylor Swift Track 8 for weeks now, and I’m trying to figure out where to settle my brain. I can tell you where my body is settled though: right in front of my standing fan.

It’s from that spot that I’m writing this to you, this plea, these my jumbled thoughts about this truly maddening (and honestly kind of sickening) world. I’m begging: get vaccinated, mask up (and OVER YOUR NOSE PLS), fight capitalism, speak out against racism, vote in every election you can, be active in trying to make this world a better place, show up for the people you care about.

And because I love lists, I made one for you, as a treat for getting through all that: