Mornings, Brittany Gibbons x DALL-E 2
Day twenty in isolation: I wake at 8 AM as my alarm tugs me from my dreams. Eyes closed, I hit the snooze button. Instead of dozing again, I focus on the feeling of my fleece blanket on my unshaven legs. I listen to soft rain and the tunes of songbirds. Ever since the second week of self-isolation, I relish these nine-minute stretches of empty mind, my own form of tabula rasa.
On the second alarm, I open my eyes and roll over to my phone and hit the “Stop” button. Still buried under layers of sheets and blankets, I open an internet browser and demand Google search engine to tell me the “number of COVID-19 cases in Santa Clara County.”
But my internet search hangs on the loading page.
Ever since Governor Gavin Newsom’s state-mandated self-isolation order, every web page is slow to load because all my neighbors are home. And when everyone is home, I suspect, like me, they teleconference for work meetings, search the internet for answers, and video-chat their at-risk parents to remind them of the dangers of leaving their houses. We all experience the world in our pajamas from our living room couches and the internet service providers were not prepared for that.
Some days, while I wait for Google to tell me the “number of COVID-19 cases in Santa Clara County,” I wish for good news. Perhaps there are enough diagnostic kits. Maybe there will be a news article on restocked grocery stores and I’ll be able to find dried lentils or toilet paper.
Most of the time though, like today, my heart races, my stomach flips, and I’m yanked from my just-waking-stupor. This same fear caused me to self-isolate weeks before the state-mandated order. Some friends blamed my hyperactive anxiety for my actions. But as the virus spread, I realized, to take a few words from Governor Newsom, I had “not overreacted nor under-reacted,” I reacted just the right amount. Because I know, even before the Google search loads, the “number of COVID-19 cases in Santa Clara County” is more than yesterday. I know there will be in-depth news articles, less than a few hours old, with quotes from experts about the “exponential growth of cases.” I also know I’ll see a headline that says something to the effect of, “‘If I get corona, I get corona.’ Spring breakers party on.”
When the search engine overcomes the slow internet connection, it shows me a headline about eighty-some new diagnosed cases. As a “numbers person” (as my dad calls me), I assume that’s an underestimation because of the backlog of untested sick patients. Then, I imagine those eighty-some sick people in their homes, fighting fevers and coughs for days, unable to get evaluated because their cases weren’t critical enough, until they were.
I click on a headline “Another COVID-19 death in Santa Clara County.” At the end, I see a section called “Articles You May Be Interested In” with two related headlines: “Hospitals in dire straits” and “Hospitals consider changes to do-not-resuscitate situations due to COVID-19.” To save my sanity, I do not feel very interested in either article and put my phone down.
Today, like every day in isolation, I set the back of my hand to my forehead to test my temperature. I think to myself, “No fever, no cough,” in a crude assessment of my health. But this assessment ignores other factors of my well-being. Like how I don’t want to leave my bed, or how I’ve lost joy in most things: early signs of depression.
In isolation, any symptom unrelated to COVID-19 feels trivial because, in this world, I’m lucky. After I get out of bed, I will go to our full-of-food-kitchen and eat a bowl of granola. I will return to the bedroom, grab my work computer, then kiss the cheek of my snoozing partner (who is COVID-19-symptom-free). I will set up my computer at my desk and put in a typical workday coding and attending virtual meetings. My routine remains unchanged, other than where I do things. Because of that, symptoms of depression feel unwarranted. It feels even more unwarranted when I read articles about medical professionals and essential workers who risk their lives to do their jobs. Yet, here I am sad about doing my job, which is to stay home and do nothing at all. So my depression morphs into guilt. In some ways, this feels more justified.
But I’ve realized this idea is an illogical accounting of a depressed mind which tries to use guilt as currency to offset the sacrifices of others. The implication is that, if I don’t take care of myself, the experience of others improves. But it doesn’t. Delivery runners will pick up and drop off packages. Doctors will continue to help the sick.
So instead of ignoring symptoms of depression on the twentieth day of self-isolation, I recognize what I feel.
I acknowledge I miss my friends. Then I text one to schedule a video-chat later.
I acknowledge how I’m worried about doctors, grocery employees, and other essential workers. Then I open a web browser on my phone and, using the slow internet, donate what I can to support them.
Then, I take a deep breath, get out of bed and start the day within the confines of my house, doing my job of doing nothing at all.