#c rambles

as someone w scoliosis sometimes i’m like

imagine actually sitting comfortably in a chair like that’s fukin wild

ya girl got a [paid] internship!! and its at a place i really like so im excited hehe

I think I’m actually having some sort of breakdown

My friend is stressing that with world war 3 imminent, everyone in this country (not Ukraine) is going to die.

And I don’t care. I mean, I don’t think it’ll happen. But also I don’t care because why should I when most people in this country don’t seem to care if I die?

Everyone is such a fucking hypocrite, suddenly caring about human life and suffering. No doubt if Ukraine’s entire population were disabled/vulnerable they wouldn’t give half as much of a shit.

A part of me even feels relieved at the thought of being wiped out by a bomb. At least then my future would be out of my hands and I wouldn’t have to spend every minute of every day assessing and adjusting my behavior just to stay alive.

I’m just so callous and dead inside after these two years. It’s infuriating to see people suddenly having the capacity to give a fuck about life and help others, when they never bothered to help people like me.

Josh,

Covid, or rather this pandemic, has taken so much from me. And yes, I do feel sorry for myself. And there’s nothing wrong with that because frankly, if more people felt sorry for people like me, we would all have more of a life right now.

The virus itself sucks and is probably far more damaging than we currently give it credit for. But the people are worse. The majority of people are happy to allow anyone with a health problem to shield at home and infinitely rot, so long as they can live life as though the pandemic never happened. They don’t care that I’m not on hospice care, bed bound or hooked up to a million machines. They don’t care that two years ago I was living like them; that they couldn’t have picked me out in the street. My home is my prison now and I should just accept that. After all, we the 6 million are the minority.

I think that if we ever get through this pandemic, I will never trust or care for people the same again. I used to think that most people were decent, with just a few bad eggs. Now, you’re a cunt and a danger to my life until proven otherwise.

This pandemic has taken my empathy and leniency. I don’t care for those who are ill if I saw them making poor decisions that caused it. I don’t look the other way when I see people breaking the rules or putting others at risk, instead I make a mental note of their selfishness. I see people I used to care about at pubs and clubs and restaurants and I wish long covid on them. I see people recover from Covid and a part of me is bitter that they never learnt their lesson. I want them to suffer. I want them to regret they ever set foot out their front door. I want them to feel as helpless and trapped as I do.

Josh, I’m training to be a doctor. How can I have such a cold heart? I guess that’s what happens when it seems it’s been broken by 60 million people all at once.

This pandemic has taken my ability to feel much at all. I am so chronically, severely hopeless and angry that there’s nothing but palpable numbness. I read headline after headline of ways the government is making my survival ever more difficult, and I just sigh and roll my eyes. I am a bottomless pit of rage. There is so much in here, yet there is no pile up to see. Sometimes my chest aches. Often I feel an overwhelming urge to lash out or set buildings alight. But I don’t feel the power of anger that I used to feel. There’s just an empty, all consuming hatred of this reality.

This pandemic has taken my family from me. My grandparents go out and live their lives and I can hardly blame them; i don’t rate their chances against Covid so they might as well enjoy their time. But that makes them a risk to me, and their hearing impairments mean I cannot visit them safely with a mask. It’s been three years since I spent Christmas with them; I could go if they swore to isolate for two weeks first, but I just know my aunt, uncle and cousins wouldn’t. My company isn’t worth that to them. My parents work for the NHS and see patients every day; the past two years have been filled with fleeting visits in car parks with takeaway McDonalds and all the windows down. This Christmas, we exchanged presents at a motorway service station halfway between us.

I’ve lost three friends so far to Covid, because asking them to keep me safe was too much. They’re hardly a loss, but the situation hurts to know that all these years, my life had so little value to them. The healthy people don’t understand. “It’s not that deep” they say, “they just want to live their lives”. But it is. Actions in this pandemic reflect our core values. They may want to live their lives, I’d just like to survive mine a little longer.

I can’t even make more friends. I started this uni course with the clear understanding that I would have to choose my health over my social life time and again. And I do. I watch as everyone else gets to know each other and spends time together, at the places where they catch covid and bring it again and again into lectures. I am barely safe to learn, let alone find human connection.

At 18 years old I saved up for a plane ticket and flew to the USA alone. Finishing college really let me learn what freedom was. I’ve been on spontaneous trips up and down the country. I used to catch trains and buses so often and loved how small it made the world feel. I loved making passing visits to cities during changeovers, becoming part of the hustle and bustle. Watching people rushing around me, taking in the departure boards and learning how to almost flawlessly manage the tube networks. I was free and I could go anywhere and do anything.

Now, my world really is small. It’s the size of a one-bedroom flat; 4 rooms to be precise. Without university or medical appointments, I would stay in here for months. I spend my weeks excited to finish my work, only to realize when I reach the weekend that I have nothing to do to reward myself. At best there are films, TV shows, games and books. But they’re all good at giving me a headache. Nowadays, I get most of my serotonin from ordering a takeaway desert once a fortnight. We do sometimes go out, but we have to be mindful of people. We walk around the nearby parks and graveyard and beaches. But there’s only so much grass and sand and ocean you can see before it becomes dull. Some days I sleep in even though I’m not tired, simply because it’s an easier way to pass the time.

Don’t get me wrong, after two years I have learnt to appreciate some of the smaller things. I remember a time when I would have been thrilled to hear I finally had a flat with my partner and that we had our own rats too. I’m insanely grateful for the progress I’ve made and the little family I have. I try my absolute best not to take them for granted; I’m so scared I’ll lose them as well.

The pandemic has also changed my perspective on my memories. There was a time, for around a year, when I had a really fucking good time that all came to an abrupt end when you died. Before covid, I used to resent that it had ended. That my depression, which was essentially in remission, had come back to consume me. All I wanted was to get back to being happy. Now though? Of course I wish to be happy. But I look back on that specific time and I’m just overwhelmed with joy and appreciation that it happened at all. I’m so glad I got to live a little bit of life before all this, and I’m honestly happy that I did it with so much naivety about what was to come. I had and did and felt some amazing things, and I can’t express how grateful I am for that. That’s not to say I’m glad for the pandemic though, as I’m sure in another life I could have learnt to appreciate these things in a less damaging way.

I don’t know where I’m going with this, exactly, Josh. I’m just being honest where I’m at. Maybe one day in the distance future I will able to look back at this with relief that life has improved. It would make a nice change; most of my reminiscing now involves remembering the early pandemic when covid wasn’t this out of control and people still wanted to help one another. I never thought my life would become this bad and now honestly, Josh, I see no way out. I used to think there was a light at the end of the tunnel, but now it’s faded to black. I’m resigned to living in this prison for the foreseeable future, in the hopes that one day I will be thankful I spared the health I do have and be able to start living again. Maybe I’ll be 25, or 35 or 45. Who knows. One thing I know is that I am not the same person I would have become without this pandemic. And I don’t think I’m ever going to be the same again.

Now, Josh, if you could just pull some strings with the guy upstairs and get him to sort this shit out, that’d be grand.

Love always you lucky, plague-free guy,

C

I have so much that I want to write about. The trouble is, I only get so much free time so it doesn’t really appeal to spend a significant proportion of that tapping into my emotions. I like to spend my free time at least pretending everything is alright.

I don’t know. I guess I’ll get round to it eventually.

I’m in my early 20s.

I want to be traveling the world before I have kids, a mortgage and other responsibilities tying me down.

I want to be trying new things before I work full time; drumming, sports, new languages.

I want to be learning who I am. Trying new styles. Making mistakes, because now is the time to do it.

I want to make memories and take pictures of me before I get old and wrinkly and grey.

But I can’t. Because the place I live is not safe for me, and if I go outside it may mean I’m never well enough again to do any of that. So I wait. I’ve waited for two years now and I see no end in sight. I wait and I wait and I wait.

My world is so small.

Josh,

I had a really shitty time about a week ago now. Not to make everything about me, or rather, you, but it was painfully reminiscent of your dying.

See, I took my rat to the vets. He’d been ill for weeks now, but from what the expert (and painfully expensive) vet had said, I was pretty certain we had options left. We’d only had him a couple of months; we adopted him and his brother as younger playmates for our older boy.

I had no expectations that I’d be going home without him. I thought we’d just be picking up a new antibiotic or maybe some alternative medications to force-feed him on biscuits for the next week. But the vet said she didn’t like how hard he was breathing, even though it was no worse than every other visit. She told me that she had one last idea, but after that we might need to have “a different kind of conversation”.

The last idea was in the form of a fast acting injection. I was sent to the waiting area while we waited to see if it helped. 45 minutes later, she told me there was no change.

“There’s a small chance he might improve yet, lets leave it a bit longer.” She really was trying to give him every chance. “Why don’t you take him out to waiting area and sit with him?”

I was grateful of any extra minutes I got to have by his side. But I knew there was a very high chance he was going to die soon. I couldn’t talk to him, and I tried so hard not to cry. Other people were in the waiting area. I just watched him in his little carrier. Pottering around. Smelling anyone who walked past. Nibbling his food. Breathing hard and trying so hard to keep living. I wanted to tell him I loved him. To get him out and love him. But I couldn’t. I could hardly bare to look at him in case the tears started coming. I was alone, in shock and waiting for him to die.

It was the hardest 40 minutes of my life in a long, long time. I didn’t want them to end, I dreaded the vet coming back out to call us. But I also wanted it to be over so I could get back to my car and cry in peace.

He was young. I didn’t expect him to die. But then I knew he would, and I was forced to just sit and wait for the inevitable. So, yeah, it made me think of that day.

It hurt like fuck, and yet a week later I’m numb again. I’m not sure which is worse. Life is such a fucking bitch, Josh. Though, I guess you don’t need me to tell you that.

Love always,

C

Josh,

I’m feeling pretty lonely this Christmas, so I’m turning to the most reliable company I have: you. I’m missing so many things right now: family, my old life, having plenty of friends. I wouldn’t call it self pity, it is what it is, but I just have a lot of time and free head space right now. There’s no much spinning around in there. So many thoughts. So for tonight, I think I’ll just listen to everything that reminds me of you and try to forget the rest.

Merry Christmas my dude,

C

Josh,

It’s always a beautiful sunny day on the anniversary of your death. It doesn’t match the occasion, but it makes me smile.

I’m thinking of you. Maybe we’ll talk soon.

C

Living through it would be so much easier if only I knew for sure it would end

Healthy people asking me for my thoughts on covid is kinda starting to feel like when bullies would talk to you in high school and you knew it was a trap but weren’t quite sure how

Like I know you don’t actually care so just cut to the part where you say we should all just live with it and I should isolate forever and be done with it

There’s a book I read years ago, called The Five People You Meet in Heaven. It’s a beautiful book, and in it Eddie, who’s just died, goes on a journey through various memories of his life. Times he never even thought were significant.

One thing that really stuck with me was how as he started, he couldn’t believe how light and easy it was to move again as if he was a kid. Then he goes on through more memories, growing up, and each time he describes how his legs look and knees feel, as they slowly become thin and veined and crippled by arthritis.

I often think about that. When I’m having to prepare myself to stand up from a seat; when I’m wincing as my stiff back fights back in a morning; when I’m jumping down a step and expecting to feel so much lighter than I do. I don’t remember how I got to this point. It’s insidious, creeping in since before I even hit puberty. And in the same way, it will worsen.

And even though I don’t really believe in an afterlife, sometimes I like to imagine I will have a heaven like Eddies. To sit outside of my old primary school soaking up the sun in the summer, pain free, doing cartwheels and hand stands. To be able to experience the body I used to take for granted again.