In the meantime: Chapter 2 —Children of boredom…
I’m gonna put it out there: this lockdown couldn’t come at a better time. Of course, COVID-19 is a bummer, it’s terrible to listen to the news and hearing about how some governments are recklessly sending people to coffins and we all wish this situation will be over sooner than later BUT for anyone who is vulnerable to social anxiety, this is the best time of our lives.
There are so many things about our old lives that we miss. I certainly miss going to work on a daily basis instead of once a week, catching up with an ever increasing workload. I know how lucky I am to have that now, I wasn’t so lucky in the summer last year. I miss the office gossip, spilling the tea with my favourite people in Vanilla City. I miss that part when I have to explain how we can make things better for them. I miss after-work drinks at the pub on a Friday evening. I miss pubs A LOT! Just sitting in a tiny pub listening to some 70’s ram jams whilst sipping a coke and lime or a Guinness.
I miss the gigs. Goooosh, I miss the gigs so much. I miss going to a shoddy venue, getting my camera geared up and have fun at metal shows where I can do some good shots while banging my luscious afro hair to the beats of post hardcore, math rock or sludge metal. I miss cheering bands I love in the front rows. I miss belting out the lyrics of my favourite songs. I miss shimmying my booty when they play hip hop during interval. I miss seeing gig buddies and having a laugh with them about the most random of things. I even miss the one weird dude that will stand out in the crowd doing the rain dance and try to initiate a mosh-pit by himself. It’s been almost a year since I last headbanged in a venue and squeed like a little girl when “my favourite songs” came in. In that case, it was “When All Is Said And Done” by Napalm Death and “Sister Fucker” by Eyehategod.
I miss date nights with my partner. I miss restaurants. I miss walking on the beach when people are about to go home. I miss all of that and I can’t wait to do these things again, ten times better in the future. I just love life too much for risking myself catching a deadly virus I don’t know much about, apart that it can seriously fuck my vital organs up. So, I stay at home. Waiting for things to calm down. Making myself busy by watching documentaries and true crime programs on Netflix, listening to my favourite podcasts, talk for four hours or so to my best friend in Paris, writing things that make things to me, read a shit ton of books. You know, regular stuff I usually don’t do because life. Some bake, others work out, I just binge-watch high brow TV programs (and Channel 4’s Gogglebox) and wait patiently like in that Fugazi song you hear at parties.
Mentally, couldn’t be any better. I’m not feeling so anxious anymore because I rarely go out, I don’t have much to worry about what people would think of me and that gets me in a much greater mood. Seriously, the fact that I have to disappear from the outside world is doing wonders to my mental health. I love being indoors, napping whenever I want, taking the time to reflect and meditate on important things, nurturing my inner fears with love and self-care. It is great! But physically, it’s another story. I am not in the best of shape and part of it is due to my Vitamin D deficiency. So, basically when you are vit D deficient, you have to deal with a lot of uncomfortable stuff like sleeping disturbances, heavy sweating (which makes no sense since we had sub-zero temperatures here for the past two weeks), sore joints and muscles, low-blood pressure at times but most importantly, tiredness and fatigue. It might seem trivial to you, dear readers, but I am so exhausted that I can’t do jack and it bores me to death. I am bored, fam. PROPER BORED! I’m so bored that I bore my partner out. He understands that these times are difficult for everybody, himself included, but poor him, he’s just bored all the time. He can’t go out, he can’t visit family or friends, we haven’t seen any concert since early March last year and we are pretty much on our own. It’s really tough. We are both in our early thirties and we struggle to cope at times, I can’t even imagine how it feels like for students.
So, here we are.
Alone and bored as hell.
Waiting for the vaccine to come, so we can finally go on holidays, or simply visit our mums on both sides of the Channel.
Hoping that I get to keep my job after my contract ends in March, so I can keep saving some money for bigger stuff.
Seeing our friends.
AND GO BACK TO THE PUB!
But we can’t do it because the virus is still here and as a result, our social life is now inexistant. And even though, we try to find some projects to work on to pass time such as learning something new (I’m learning Portuguese and Dutch at the moment), clear the clutter in our flat (one Saturday at a time) or enjoying watching football on telly (and rugby for me), it doesn’t change the fact that this extended lockdown — our third — is getting into our heads. I think it would be good if we can have enough mental support from the NHS but bless them, they need more support than us and the government will never allow them that because, you know, fucking Tories.
So, yeah, in the meantime, all we have to do is wait for it to be over and it can’t be soon enough. I will try to recuperate as fast as possible so I can keep my head above water and get more ideas for future writings. Well, after that nap…
