New Old Habits

Summer sessions starts on Monday, after a three-week hiatus from work.  Part of me is looking forward to returning to the classroom.  Part of me dreads it. 

I know I’ll be okay once things are going.  But in the days leading up to summer orientation earlier this week I began to feel anxious about leaving the house.  You see, I had not left at any point during the three weeks except to get the mail and take out the trash.  

This had a familiar feel to it.  During the pandemic’s worst phase, I went four and a half months alone at home. I am not exaggerating.  I opened my door only to accept deliveries and to let in technicians from my internet service provider.  My first venture out was to get my first dose of the vaccine (but only after calling AAA to jump start the car I hadn’t driven all winter). 

Fall and spring semesters were partly live and went well. But during the winter break I holed up at home once more and went nowhere ever, reverting to having my necessities brought to me.  I am beginning to suspect the past couple of years have taken a greater toll on my sense of wellbeing than I previously believed.  These days, I do not return home so much as I flee there. 

Some of this is caution.  In spite of being vaxxed and double boosted, and in spite of weekly PCR tests during the school year (all negative!), I don’t want to be infected.  Some of this I can attribute to the breakdown in social norms since the pandemic hit.  It appears to me that the shameless ratfuckery of the Trump years has emboldened every unhinged crank and basement dweller in the country to act out.  The absence of accountability and consequences for their flagrant public misbehavior bodes ill for the common good.  I just don’t want to engage. 

Before the plague arrived, I was only home 24/7 on weekends during the academic year.  Travel was a constant for me in my free time; it was good to escape the shitshow our country was descending into once in a while to clear my head.  My previous life has been stood on its head.  My passport expired three months ago.  I haven’t traveled by air since the very early days of COVID.  I’ve spent exactly one night in a motel, and only then because there was utility work being done on my block and I would be without water for a day.  

I don’t like living as I do now, but I can’t help the situation or myself.  I have developed new old habits.

 

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