I have caught covid three times. Once in early 2020, before we knew it was here, once in September 2022, and a third time this past July. It’s been the hardest three months of my life. The cumulative effects of covid have changed my body and my mind so much that some days I don’t recognize myself.
I am forgetful in new ways; my hands don’t always grip. One day of moderate socializing puts me in bed for 12+ hours. I don’t recall the tingling on my left side being quite this intense. I don’t like how bitchy I am when I’m overstimulated. My anxiety is the worst it’s ever been. I can’t read for fun anymore. I have to take notes when I do read, lest I forget. Some words don’t come as easily to me, words that are not “hard” words. Words in English scare me so bad that studying Spanish and Portuguese seems like a fool’s errand.
I taste bile when people look at me askance for “still masking.” I could spit battery acid at those who say they believe in community (what does that even mean? community is a practice) but don’t want to rapid test, just “accepting” infection upon infection as if this shit is a cold. As if the increase in rare and aggressive cancers, especially in younger adults, isn’t related. As if otherwise healthy people can’t later die of strokes or heart attacks after one mild infection. I am embittered. I am angry. I am tired.
I am here, for now, figuring out who the fuck I am now. My cleverness has always been my gift; I don’t surrender that with any ease. I feel like there’s a tiny tear inside me, my sense of self slowly wearing away because I’m not as quick as I used to be. I wouldn’t say I was ever cocky. But I have always known I am quick, witty, slicker than a can of WD40. That’s falling through my fingers, like water through a sieve. I second guess my words, don’t always construct sentences in the right tense… I notice. And I’m worried.\
I don’t worry about dying, as in when it’ll happen or how. I worry about living until I get there. Who will I be? Will I go to Brazil like Dilla did, on one last trip before it’s over? Will I make one last TikTok or Instagram video like Bella Bradford, to be posted only in the event of my passing? How do I want to be? Higher than angel titties, not able to feel my end? Do I wish to be lucid, surrounded by soft lights and ensconced between pillows and flowers? How will I die? How will you all say farewell to me? I don’t know.
I just know I’m here right now, trying to remember something that I was supposed to do before tomorrow…