Today, I found out my partner’s roommate tested positive for COVID. They had been sick for a few days, and once they started showing symptoms a little less than a week ago, my partner and I stayed apart and I started working at home waiting to see what the diagnosis was. Early rapid results tests all came back negative, but the more official (and accurate) PCR test they took on Thursday came back today as positive.
The effects its had on me, this waiting for the official test results and not knowing what was going on had a strong effect on me- paired with some less than good news from work, Parker knocking me over to chase a cat, and my bathtub leaking into the laundry room below made for a rough start to the weekend, and leaves me wishing for 3 day weekends rather than 2 day weekends, along with wishing that COVID test results didn’t take 2-4 days in our rural section of California.
Today, Parker and I went to Stinky Beach. I found two soda cans that were likely from the 1970s or 1980s judging by the openings- they were pull tabs, with the tabs pulled, the cans emptied and crushed. I picked them up, along with some styrofoam, a rubber belt, some white plastic strip of some kind, and a very distraught looking bicycle pump that I had to wrench out of the sand, drag the mile or so back to the closest trashcan off the beach.
That was all surprisingly tiring, so I came home, brewed some tea, and took a nap. The tea is still there, now cold and probably oversteeped.
I feel a bit like that sometimes when I get onto the internet these days- checking the news or Instagram on my phone, Facebook on the random chance that I am on an actual computer since I deleted the app to lessen the platforms I could doomscroll on. At least Google News eventually has an end to its scroll, but I still feel terrible once I get to the end of it. I feel like I know too much, not good stuff but dark and bitter things. Not even dark and bitter in the way that dark chocolate is, dark and bitter in the way that 3 hour steeped black tea is- two sips and you want to throw it out the window.
I keep mulling over just deleting my accounts on social media platforms for good, but the millennial and historian in me doesn’t want to miss out and doesn’t want to loose this little snapshot of early 2000’s life: sharing memes and photos of me and my friends and family growing up, the collective WTF of young liberal types in response to 2016-2020 and the reign of the Cheeto. So here I am, trying to moderate my access instead. It works sometimes.
Then other times, I am scrolling and see things that ignite something in me- someone getting engaged or buying a house, and a voice in me says “that should be you.” Someone got a new job? “Should be you.” Reconnected with an old friend? “What are you doing ya doofus? That should be you doing all that!”
The “Should-er” lives rent free in my mind, and now that I’m aware of it, it’s annoying as heck. It comes out to give an opinion even when the thing I am seeing that I “should” be doing is something that I don’t really have an interest in doing- going out for drinks or a concert for instance. Drinks, maybe, but not at a time like this and concerts? Too loud. But I should be there.
Social media in particular brings this out so much- FOMO is what most people call it these days. I experience another dimension of it where I feel like I am not only missing out, but falling behind on some imaginary curve of where I “should” be in my life. That curve is also incredibly ambiguous- married at 25? Yeah, likely not for me, that’s pretty young. I can’t remember to brush my teeth sometimes, being married is a whole other ballpark of responsibilities. But 30? Isn’t that kind of old? Aren’t the good dudes taken by then? I don’t know. Throw the experiences of the last 5 ish years into the mix and I think anyone who is telling you there is some kind of established expected progression is having a pipe dream. We are all making it up as we go along. Past expectations live on though, with annoying consistency that grow in strength as things become less secure and established. If only this oversteeped tea could be watered down a bit.
Katie Buesch 