Here’s what I did:

• went to work
• ate at restaurants (rarely, certainly more than I used to)
• hung out with friends (small gathering at home, or a slightly larger gathering in an outdoor setting)
• wore a mask when going indoors anywhere (except at work; I don’t have close contact with coworkers)
• adhered to others’ request to test before hanging out, tested before major events
• tested regularly (and for suspected symptoms or potential exposure)
• And I now realize how I tend to begin, or at least liberally use, lists.

I went to work Monday, as usual, and as the day winded down I noticed I was pretty tired– but I chalked it up to a certain weekend where there was debauchery that I was still recovering from. "If I don’t feel better after a full night’s sleep, I will take a test," I reasoned with myself. And you know how this played out the following morning.

I can’t tell you where I could have gotten it. But I can tell you how I felt.

Guilty

The instant my test beeped "POSITIVE" I shut myself in my room.

I let everyone know as soon as I knew, fancy PDF and all. I may not have been as responsible as I could have been– did I forget to wear a mask that one time?– but I made sure to do what I needed to do, once I knew I had Covid.

And I felt guilty.

I thought back to that one sneeze, before laying down for a from a Sunday nap with my lovers. Should I have known, then? I worried if they would soon come down with it, too. I traced back all my steps the previous days of ducking in for errands, to every elder person I had a conversation with. I mentally recalled how much time I spent training a coworker in my office– and how close we were, for a change. Did I forget to wear a mask, somewhere? Was a place a little two crowded?

Obviously, someone got me sick. Maybe they didn’t know, or didn’t care. But I was fine with that. I took that risk going outside, right? Every time I stepped out my front door was a roll of the dice.

But I could have gotten someone sick.

Thankfully (from what I can gather) it stopped at my bedroom door. But someone could have died.

Yes, still.

Frustrated

One is the acknowledgment that Covid-19 is here to stay. We are probably going to be living with this virus for our lifetimes and our children’s lifetimes and beyond. Given that’s the case, the emphasis has to be to resume normalcy, which means cutting out policies that are disruptive to everyday life.

The end of quarantine? What people should know about the CDC’s new Covid-19 guidelines

I’ll express this again: getting sick and missing out on a paycheck was more of a disruption to my everyday life. And once again, I’m retracing my steps, but through years instead of days. If only we cared about one another more, and not the economy. If only the CDC had a backbone. If only we had a safety net in place for those that grew sick.

The pandemic revealed some glaring flaws in our systems, and unfortunately I don’t see any fixes to them anytime soon.

I am fortunate to have a support system in place, but others aren’t so lucky.

Lonely

Communication was through The Blessed Internet or my closed door. People were notified; Doordash reinstalled. And I settled in for the impending isolation. "I’ll be kinda okay," I thought, "I can pretend I’m back in 2008 where the only thing I worried about was online classes and Maple Story. Only better, because there’s better games and better phones! And a Nintendo Switch!"

But I still woke up to Day 3 really feeling it. My body aches were gone, but (pause for dramatic effect) there was an ache in my heart because my phone wasn’t blowing up like my AIM Messenger program on my Windows ME computer in 2003 on a Thursday night.

But seriously.

Work takes up a lot of our time. For me it’s 40 hours of it, per week. You remove that from your schedule and the hours of nine-to-five are pretty quiet, because everyone else is busy working. Also, like, people have stuff to do.

And what was worse, I didn’t get anything accomplished! Once again, COVID has robbed me of my productivity. Instead of baking bread at home with my dog, I was too busy being an Essential Worker. Instead of writing my gay magnum opus, I was too busy recuperating and being sad at my lack of cuddles.

Being touch-starved is a terrible thing, and since I’m a terrible person I would wish it on my worst enemy. When you have COVID, you obviously can’t glomp your nesting partners. Or snuggle after a long day. Or curl up together in bed. Or bite them for no apparent reason.

I refuse to feel guilty for resting when I need to, and I’m used to low interaction online. But the lack of physical touch from another human being was easily the worst part of quarantine for me.

I felt like life moved on around me, and I was in an impenetrable stasis where I was not perceived.

I had no form.

Sometimes, you could hear me. Maybe.