First time out in 18 months

Last week was the first time in 18 months I actually went out beyond our village. The farthest I've gone before that was to the gas station at the outskirts of our village. Before that, I haven't gone out for a year.

My inner hikikomori would be proud.

But this time I really had to leave because banks are annoyingly inflexible institutions. So anyway-

It's been a while so I'm very very out of shape. When I took my first dose of the vaccine I had to climb uphill towards the vaccination location. I was dying. I looked like I was running for an hour but it was literally about ten minutes away from my house. I was breathing so hard and it was raining a bit so I fogged up my faceshield and couldn't see a damn thing. 

So this time, I practiced. I practiced walking up and down the stairs several times for a few days before this. So I managed to get to my destination without dying from exhaustion; my shoes were killing me but that's a different story. But I totally forgot that I haven't used a public toilet in nearly two years. You know that squatting position women do to sort of hover above the toilet? Yeah, well, my knees were shaking. 

This is really gonna take some getting used to.

It's so frustrating just how many surfaces I touched without meaning to. I'm like, 'I'm just looking for a pen-' Touched the counter. Shit. Touched a handle. Shit. Touched everything. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. 

Even eating wasn't as enjoyable because previously I couldn't care less about where I ate and what I ate. You can buy small stuff here and there and eat them while walking but now you can't eat while walking because that defeats the purpose of getting masked up. And it's just safer to eat from a good distance from other people.

I even forgot to take photos.

Everything looked sad. It wasn't even the lack of the usual Christmas crowd. There was a lot of people, but it was more like the typical pre-pandemic mid-day crowd than the nighttime Christmas crowd. And if you don't like crowds then you aren't really gonna miss that but everything just seems less festive even with the decors that are up. Several stores have closed. The ones that are still open hardly have any customers.  National Bookstore is starting to look like a warehouse.

The way I think about the everyday things, of death and the future, has changed significantly during the course of the pandemic.  Of course I've thought of death as inevitable, something that could happen tomorrow or in twenty years, but that reality sits in the haze. It's uncertainly certain. But now that's different. Like waking up to the harsh midday sun there's that stark reality that death could happen tomorrow and it really could.

It's not like I haven't thought of it happening prematurely.  Three years ago I would have thrown it all out. But things happened.  In the year after that, I began to think of what ifs. What if things could be different?  For the first time in a long time, I was looking forward.

Now I'm pissed.  This pandemic is threatening to take all that. Well, truthfully, not much has been done since then and that's my fault but it's more about the principle you know.  This pandemic and the time spent in a standstill has made me think of things I normally would have dismissed as something that I don't see in my future.  I think about the people I lost and think about what they would have wanted to do, to see, to feel.  I thought more and more about what these same questions would have meant for me.

I'm realistic.  I know my options are limited.  Now the pandemic is limiting those options even more. 

I'm such a procrastinator.

You know when you're rushing to do something then you reach a hurdle- a deadline, an event- and everything just slows down? That's how it is now. Seven days in! Seven days past New Year's Day just floated by. And all the things I was stressing about in December took a back seat in my mind.

January always feels like the top of the world, looking down at the vast expanse beneath. You look at the rest of the year and think that you have so much time ahead of you. 

But now the pandemic left me feeling like there isn't time left to us. It's stupid because I always waste time. I always put whatever aspiration I have in the backburner to dry out thinking that it would still be there in the far-off someday when I do decide to go out in the world. Now it feels like the world isn't out there anymore. Even if I chose to step out, the world has closed itself; it isn't up to me anymore. 

It's odd, like I should be rushing to do something in indignation at how things are. Well, not now. Maybe next week..🙃

 I looked over my Facebook feed and thought, "Why can't I live like this?"

I only have a a handful of Facebook friends. Facebook had always been about the other people in my life, keeping tabs on what they do and not about me. So I kept the numbers low and very rarely added anyone unless I was embarrassed to face someone knowing I didn't add them.

One of the people constantly sharing on my feed was a girl I had a language class with. From anime, art, music and pretty quotes, I loved nearly everything she shared. We're more acquaintances than friends yet I resonated more with what she shared than with what my other friends shared. This is great, I thought, I wish I could be like this, immersing myself in anime and art and music...

Wait, why can't I live like this?

It's not even that deep. I don't have to be an artist or musician or anything of the sort to indulge myself in things that make my soul smile but so far I kep myself from that and pulled myself back.