COVID Quarantruths

I sit at my desk having binge-rewatched five seasons of Community after years. And it’s left me slightly unsettled as to how much I have been escaping or avoiding facing certain things (and also that I can apparently binge-watch a show at all – Community is just that good; definitely recommend it, the humour is brilliantly meta).

I’ve been Abed-ing my way through the last few months, and as much as fiction has always been a way to create/escape to utopias, I have been actively avoiding reality. While I physically distanced myself from people as recommended, I also did virtually. I justified it as a coping mechanism for excess stress, or that I was too busy with coursework to talk to others, but the reality was always that if I did talk to them I would have to face what was happening within my 17-square-metre apartment. I would have to face the fact that I was not doing okay/good mentally, as I had been telling anyone who asked. And I didn’t want to face it. Taking care of others and making sure they were doing fine was my way of staying out of my head and in others'; it helped them, but it also helped me. And I guess it is incredibly selfish of me to do so. Taking care of myself on the other hand was very low on my priority list.

I became anxious about multiple things. I wondered whether I would ever see my family again. I had irrational fears about never meeting my grandparents again. I missed home-cooked meals with my family, and their warm safe hugs (I cried and hugged myself when watching Coco, which I rewatched too many times). I missed home. I worried about the situation back home, because it was so much worse than where I currently am. And I felt helpless that I couldn’t do anything about any of it. Everything was so compounded, each issue tangled up in too many different other problems – and it wasn’t just COVID-related.

I wanted to distance myself from my family so that I wouldn’t give them the chance to find out something was wrong, so they wouldn’t worry about me from so far away when they had their own things to stress about. But I knew if I did distance myself, they would know something was up and worry about me anyway. And so I talked to them every weekend and swallowed any negative feelings I had accumulated over the week.

I distanced myself from friends as much as I could. And as much as I wanted to stay away, I was also worried about their well-being, mental and otherwise. And I’m glad I reached out to some of them; I was right for being worried, and it gives me peace of mind to know they are doing ok if not well. Of course if they asked how I was, I stuck to ‘okay’ and ‘fine’ as a response. Not the truth, but not lies either. I tried to make them laugh when I could with my overall silliness – sometimes I had really good timing and I don’t mean comedic.

I missed eating at uni with my friends here, since I couldn’t meet all of them anymore. I am grateful for the people I did meet with in person, initially occasionally, but later every day. I kept in touch with some of them virtually, but most of the time, with all the online classes, I just wanted to stay away from everything school-related. It was exhausting and I sometimes wish I had stayed in touch with more people, but I also knew I just couldn’t. I also wished summer would come faster so the courses would end and I could just be done with everything. I don’t know if taking too many classes to distract myself and fill up my free time was a good or bad decision.

Keeping in touch with people has always been a bit more on the mentally exhausting side, and so this situation was just more intensely tiring. In the end with all the deadlines piling up, I just stopped talking to everyone except my family and the friends I met in person.

I grew tired of taking care of myself. I got tired of cooking meals. I stress-ate/binged on junk food. I forgot to water my plants. My room got messier. The laundry and garbage piles stayed for a little longer. I stayed in my room for hours on end. I stayed in bed for longer most non-working mornings. My overthinking went into overdrive; I began questioning myself about who and how I was as a person, it was not a good place to be mentally.

Social media was the worst/best distraction.

I’m a month into summer vacation now. Things have relaxed a little. I have some projects to work on, so I’m not completely bored. I’ve binge-rewatched way too many shows (ATLA, Gravity Falls, Community), movie-marathoned myself to sleep or got caught up with some food-related shows on YouTube. I have stayed away from social media as much as I can. I stay outdoors for longer and more often. I’ve tried to meditate and do yoga again. I have been able to meet up with some of my friends from uni while also being anxious about using public transport to do so.

Most of them would be going home for the summer, and I was glad my friends were able to go back to be with their families. But it made me realise that I wanted to be with mine, even though I knew and was mentally prepared that I wouldn’t be able to. Though I knew I would see most of my friends again, it was still disheartening and it also felt weird – like a feeling of loss. There were some I knew I wouldn’t see again, at least not until way beyond summer ended, and that felt much worse.

I have never been good with goodbyes or writing endings, and so I think the music I have on in the background right now is quite fitting – a bittersweet score from FMAB. After I spent the last two days rewatching Community (and too many more of escaping reality), I’ve resurfaced. I’ve begun cleaning my room, shuffling things around, eating healthier, trying to get pending work done. Much like Abed goes through his mental coping mechanisms of escaping reality only to face and maybe adjust to the truth at the end of the episode, binge-rewatching Community provided that cathartic experience for me. And I feel a bit lighter than I have in a long time.