cw: uncertainty, anxiety, depression, talk of death–but my family and I are all healthy, so if you need to not read, you don’t need to worry on that account.
It is a bad day in Laura’s brain. One of those days of wondering will I catch this thing? If I do, will I die? I’d like to not die in 2020. Or, like, until I’m ridiculously old and waaay more okay with the idea than I am now.
I’m used to feeling like I will survive out of goddamned spite, if nothing else, but today I’m not sure that’s a viable plan.
The family is good. We’re masking, we’re not going out much (curbside pickup for printer ink was the highlight of my week), so far we’re all healthy and hanging in there. A writer friend on Twitter is also an ER nurse. I think she lives in Kansas? Maybe? Anyway, she’s pretty sure she’s got it and is waiting on her test results. So that probably hit me right in the anxiety, for her (she’s a great writer and hilarious on Twitter) and also as my day job considers how and when it will open back up (slowly, seems to be the plan right now).
The thing that brings me the least and the most comfort right now is a John Mulaney quote (no, not that one, Tumblr peeps. This one comes earlier.): “I think eventually everything’s going to be okay, but I have no idea what’s going to happen next. And neither do any of you, and neither do your parents!”
On the one hand, that is fucking scary. I mean, I realize I’m not the rule, here, but my parents are supposed to know everything, okay? My father is 81 years old. The man spent 9 years in the Marine Corps. He traveled the world and did shit he can’t actually talk about. He dated Tuesday Weld for, like, a day. He ran away from home at age 10. He got kicked out of Catholic school for punching a priest. He hates boats because he was on one that sank underneath him. My point is that nothing should surprise him, and the world is making him say “What the actual fuck?” right now.
So when I think … will I end up dead from COVID-19 this year? Or next year? I hear that in my head.
But on the other hand … NOBODY knows what’s going to happen next. So who’s to say it won’t be good? I honestly did not expect Harvey Weinstein to even come close to going to trial, and there he was with his walker, playing for sympathy.
So when someone says, “They’re not going to have a vaccine! Or treatments! We’re all fucked!” I also hear that in my head: and neither do any of you, and neither do your parents!
In the end, I dunno. Truly, ain’t nothing guaranteed, even when there’s no pandemic. I know that. I’ve also been dealing with anxiety for well-nigh 16 years, now, and in that time I have amassed enough tools, workarounds, and experience to know that this day, too, shall pass. God is change, as Lauren Olamina tells us, and no head space lasts forever.
Laura E. Price 