On Covid, Pandemics, and Quarantine

Hello friends!

I didn’t mean for this to be my first blog post, but this is 2021 and here we are.

Last March, my creativity kicked into overdrive when I learned that I would be working remotely and stuck in my cramped apartment for the foreseeable future. I entered 2020 with the goal of writing draft 3 of Scion of Victory by June and the (second attempt of the) first draft of the sequel by December. With the abundance of time I suddenly had on my hands, I managed to finish the third draft by the end of April. 

I’m an introvert, so my social calendar already wasn’t very full—I most missed weekly Dungeons and Dragons and monthly board game nights with friends. I live with my partner, and we get along splendidly, so I wasn’t lonely or irritated. I missed not seeing my parents, but still spoke with them regularly. I was able to put more focus on school and finishing my MFA. I put more energy into maintaining my long-distance friendships. I did yoga four times a week. All-in-all, despite the screwed-up sleeping schedule and questionable hygiene, I was thriving.

But quarantine in Los Angeles didn’t last forever, and eventually I had to go back to work. Forty hours of my week went back to that, along with a lot of my energy. I spent ten months being very careful in public, wearing my mask and sanitizing my hands and maintaining a distance of at least six feet, thank you. It has been exhausting.

And then last week, I got sick for the first time since this all began. I thought it was allergies, but it wasn’t. I got a positive result for Covid-19 on Wednesday, and my partner immediately banished me to the master suite of our house. The first thing I did after settling in was make a to-do list in anticipation of the two weeks I suddenly had at home. (To-do lists help me feel organized and motivated.) Top of the list was creating this website.

The rest of the list hasn’t happened because one thing I didn’t anticipate (perhaps naively) about getting Covid?

I would have the energy for absolutely nothing.

It’s infuriating and boring and maddening. Over the last week, I’ve lost a concerning amount of weight, slept far more than I’m used to, had chills and fever, and picked up a cough that sounds like it belongs to an avid smoker. I’ve written nothing, read less than 200 pages, and had some of the strangest dreams. Perhaps most depressing of all is that my symptoms are comparatively mild and because I’m a relatively healthy young woman in my mid-twenties with no underlying medical conditions, I’ll very likely recover fully.

This blog post is the first thing I’ve written in a week, and I’m coughing constantly and watching comfort movies while I do it. I’ve been sick before—colds, laryngitis, a particularly mean case of strep throat that turned into mononucleosis my freshman year of college—but nothing like this. I’ve been so entirely sapped of willpower and energy, and honestly my brain kind of goop. 

So this gets to be my first official blog post. Be safe out there. Don’t go anywhere you don’t need to. Wear a damn mask. Don’t get sick like me and hate everything.

Anyway, I’m gonna take a page out of my dear writing buddy’s blog book and end each of these with what I wrote this week and what I read.

What I wrote this week: Nothing! 🙂

What I read this week: Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey.