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I wake to an exhaustion that tries to wrestle me back into sleep. Getting out of bed, I perform my morning stretches – the little I can do to get some motion into my neck and back without aggravating anything. I’m sure my body’s a minefield. Years of chronic pain, of anxiety, of obsessive introspection, has groomed my mind, and my sympathetic nervous system, to fixate on anything untoward, and then exaggerate whatever’s reported. While I’m lying on my belly, arms outstretched, and arcing my shoulders and upper torso back and forth twenty-four times, I feel if I just fall still, I’ll drop back into sleep. It’s a weird juxtaposition;…
11
I lay in bed, caught between sleep and waking, but feeling a peculiar tiredness I’d compare to the lassitude that comes from a sedative. It’s my first bout with Covid – I thought I was going to be invulnerable from it. But waking up with an overwhelming lethargy, I bought a test on the way to work, took it into my makeshift office, and was surprised to see it come up positive. Four years ago, this might’ve terrified me – at the very least, I would’ve worried myself into what might happen. That’s always been my worst enemy: my imagination. But now I only feel disappointment that I’ve tested positive.…
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