The Corona Isolation Diary – Day 20

I haven’t been out of the house in 21 days. And even before that, for about a week, I was only going out once a day, in the evening, and that wasn’t to socialize or meet people. Essentially, I haven’t seen anyone since what feels like forever.

Most days, I’m ok… for the most part. We’re ok. We begin the day well enough. I wake normal and ok… and fellow actually has a fine excuse to go out most days “hunting and gathering” so presumably he is less confined and cabin fevery than me.

I am usually fine till about 4 pm. Work, chores, cooking, cleaning, bath, lunch, etc… after a late wake-up, usually takes care of the morning. I usually watch something on Netflix or amazon prime after lunch, trying to stay distracted and not think too hard about things. This works fairly well, almost all days so far.

Around 4 though I start to get restless and can’t focus on whatever I am watching, no matter how interesting it is. I feel hyper, short of breath, I itch all over, I cannot get comfortable, it’s just hellish. This continues till about 5 or 5.30 when I finally give up and go back to the living room. This is the start of our family evening, with tea, snacks, and the Carrom Board. After which, around 7, monkey has dinner and goes to bed, leaving the two of us to our “grown up time”.

Grown up time has been a tradition in our house from the very beginning. Monkey has always had an early bedtime, because I hate kids dancing on everyone’s heads till midnight and the parents having no time even to talk. For 14 years, this has been the time when fellow and I reconnect, talk, share nonsense, discuss world history and current events, listen to music, share a drink…whatever…

These days, it is the time when we pour ourselves some club soda, and focus on individual handhelds, anything to avoid looking at the TV screen, in my case at least, and the relentless regurgitation of corona corona corona. And then, there is the twice daily rerun of the Mahabharat and Ramayan. Cool enough in a nostalgic way, - how we watched them so avidly back when we were kids, and what not – not only are they just a little bit intolerable right now, in terms of quality, ethics, and so on, I also worry about the further saffronisation it is causing to a whole new generation of captive audience. It is not easy to forget that the entire run up to the destruction of the Babri masjid was, in part at least, fueled by the first telecast of the Ramayan. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMT18TMNQbY) this makes me uncomfortable and worried, especially given the kind of polarizing and communal language the media is using… from Corona jihad to Corona bomb… and yet, I cannot turn it off in my home, because what else is there to do, and turning off, or trying to, will cause unnecessary friction and arguments.

Arguments and shouting is something we haven’t had in my house for something like 15 years now. We disagree on things, often, but then we discuss them, talk them through, and reach a common solution. But not these days… as frustrations mount, and forced constant presence in such close quarters (my home is a 750 sq ft apartment) turns us all into short tempered people, arguments and fulminations are occurring almost daily. With one hypertensive, one teenager, and me – who has always been quick to anger, the atmosphere is often tense, with most of us trying not to do or say anything to set it off.

And then, then there is the constant background fear and terror that we are very firmly not facing. The fear of bringing the virus home to monkey from the morning expedition, the fear of getting it, the fear of how many and who this virus will kill before it is finally done, the fear of whether we can make it that far, economically, emotionally, mentally, the fear of what the 2-3 months AFTER this is over will be like before we can begin earning again, the fear of whether there will even be avenues left for freelancers like us to continue working, or whether we will have to go back to the “jobs”, the fear of whether there will even be jobs left for us, and whether we will still be employable in a much diminished market during what promises to be an unprecedented global economic recession.

Banks and credit cards have given a moratorium on payments, until May 30^th, taking away the immediate stress of where we were to find the money – in the midst of all this – to make the payments. But it brings another level of long term stress with it, because all of it (plus the interest that banks will continue to charge) will fall due – in a huge lump – in the first week of June. By the time that time rolls around, we will definitely not have the kind of money that paying those dues will entail, not to mention what else I manage to pile up on the credit cards in the meantime.

So, no matter how much we try to ignore all these things while we are awake… it is no wonder it bleeds through. And when we sleep, the subconscious can finally be heard engaging in the freaked out screaming that we are shutting our ears to while awake. Every night for the last 15 or so, I have dreamt Corona. I usually overdose my brain with whatever I am binge watching, before trying to sleep, so that dreams are more likely to be murder mysteries or sci-fi strangeness than what have you. For the last 15 days or so, the murder mysteries or sci-fi strangeness has simply been running in the foreground of a Corona pandemic. Last night fellow woke from a nightmare of being tied to his bed in an isolation ward, unable to breathe properly and unable to get help. Monkey claims not to have had nightmares so far, and I hope that is true, which would also mean that the shielding we are trying to do is working.

Given that I was already in a pretty nasty place, mentally, and seriously considering therapy, I have no idea how long and how well I can handle all this. As for fellow, whether he acknowledges it or not, he was probably in a worse place than me when all this began, and he has no outlets, not even a blog. His go-to tactic has always been ignore and bottle… so I am not sure how long that will work either.