Seradhe
333
6
2
I've seen the memes, but few stories. And I'm half hoping writing all this down will help me work this all out a little bit. As the title says: I've been quarantined at home for the past 13 months.
When the pandemic started, my job made the decision to close up for two weeks while paying their employees. This was followed up by four weeks unpaid leave and a tentative re-opening to online pickup orders only with limited staff. As a Supervisor and on site lift heavy things/reach tall shelves guy, I was tapped to come back and worked another four weeks with a crew of only three other people in the store. This alone was causing stress among my roommates, who were aiming for zero risk during the pandemic, but I made it work. We live in an apartment with a garage, so I turned the garage entry in to an airlock of sorts. Every day I came home through the garage door, stripped and changed into a pair of gym shorts, and went straight to the shower. The clothes I wore out were put in a garbage bag and, along with the gym shorts, went into the wash for the next day.
Then the word came from corporate that we were going to fully open again. But individual locations were only subject to the mask mandates in our region. Living in a... less than progressive state, that meant masks would not be required for shopping in a store where maintaining a six-foot distance is all but impossible. I put in for a leave of absence, as the risk got too high for my roommates' comfort. (I should add that both of my roommates have pre-existing conditions and a valid fear for getting Covid).
After another two weeks at home, it was decided I would put in my two week notice effective the date I was supposed to return. One of my roommates works from home, and makes enough to cover rent and utilities for us, so all I'd be responsible for are my personal bills; which my savings were more than enough to last the (HA!) few months until we could go out again. (I found out later that less then a month after I left, my position was laid off and I missed out on a nice severance package, oops)
We started finding ways to get food and supplies in, which would become the new norm for the following year. Like many others, Amazon was the go-to for things like soap and dish detergent (and later, cat food and litter). Companies like Crowdcow and Misfits Box provided us with a steady flow of meat and fresh fruit/produce. For things like milk and butter, we took to Wal-Mart curbside pickup. The garage airlock system was used again, only this time it included removing everything from the shopping bags and hand-carting it inside. We ended up buying from a restaurant supply company and had 150 lbs. of flour at the start. A sourdough starter was made and fresh bread was baked daily.
months 1-3: The crafts Era.
I took my newfound kinda-freedom with the excitement of a teen on the first day of summer. The part of the garage not used for my airlock was already a bit of a workshop. I spent a week organizing and cleaning the area, then making good use of a collection of arts and crafts tools I had gathered over the years. I finally broke out my lathe and used it, learned out to make Resin casts (and later silicone pouring my own molds). Some days I would just set myself up with my laptop and write short stories. As an adult with a couple of decades of adulting under me, it was like being a kid again.
Months 3-5: The breakdown Era
Eventually, burnout took its toll. I discovered that the steady stream of ideas for building projects I get only appeared to come to me so constantly because I had other things to do between inspirations. Near the end of the third month, my time in my little workshop was growing less and less. Often when I did go down there, it would be to toy around with a piece of wood with no real goal in hopes of catching a moment of inspiration to have a goal to work towards. It also didn't help that, living in an apartment complex, my sense of concern for my neighbors kept me from breaking out the bigger/louder power tools except in rare occasions. My days began to bounce between being highly active or just curling up and watching entire seasons' of shows in one sitting.
Month 6-7: the Forgotten Era
I couldn't tell you if I did anything productive for almost eight weeks. Aside from the occasional Wal-Mart pickup, I rarely left my room. a dozen half finished projects just sat on my workbench collecting dust. Our Sourdough starter was ignored and left to die. I'd wake up, turn on my laptop, and just stream endless youtube and movies until I felt tired. This fucked with my sleep pattern like nothing else; I constantly flipped back and forth between four completely worthless hours of restless sleep, only to pass out and sleep HARD the next night for nine hours.
Month 7-9: The Lonely Holidays Era
Growing up with a large circle of family/friends, The Holidays were always a positive time for me: starting with my birthday in October and ending on New Years. 2020 was rough all the way through. Thanksgiving was just our apartment (we've seen each other already. every. single. day) with no guests. My birthday and Christmas were some packages from my family and a lot of calls and text/emails. I went through the motions of setting up the tree if only to feel that sense of normalcy that came from it. I had a small chance to leave and visit an equally safe friends' house in November, but all the rallies and crap leading to the election saw such a spike in new cases in my area I was forced to cancel.
Month 9-ongoing: The Recovery Era
I am in no way a small person. Pre-Covid, a combination of my jobs physical demands and efforts not to snack had seen me lose over 70 bs. I weighed myself on New Years Day to discover that 30 of those pounds were back, and panicked. Living in an apartment and not going out, there's only so much physically I could do, but I tried to be more active. I cut out on my now poor snacking habits, limited myself to three healthy meals a day, and set some ground rules for chores and my ruined sleep pattern. Since then I've worked off ten of those pounds, but as things slowly begin to ease up, I've taken to jogs around my complex in the mornings to try to lose more and fix my ruined stamina.
Time Compression: Month 4-whenever
The worst part of this all has been my complete lack of any sense of time. There has been no looking forward to a day off from work coming up, or some special event with which to anchor my timeframe from. Every day was just like the day before it. My sense of the passing weeks dwindled down to seeing a new episode of Mandalorian/Wandavision/etc.. came out and realizing it's Friday.
The only reason this post has any sort of timeframe is from weeks of self-reflecting and trying to sort out what went where in my life this past year.
Self-explanatory. Even with Stimulus checks, my budget was extremely tight. At first, I had put aside a small amount for myself to buy resin/glue and such for crafting, or the occasional Steam game to pass the time. As the exile from the world continued, even that went away as I began to cycle which bills to pay. Credit Card companies seemed to lax their chokehold, thankfully, and I got a couple months' reprieve until I could sort things out.
Side note: I am well aware many people have lost their living arrangements due to finances during the pandemic, and I in no way am trying to downplay how serious an issue that is. I am aware that my situation is unique, and I am thankful that I didn't have to somehow drive across the country and move into my parents' house.
The beginning of this latest bout of depression came about late March. During a now-regular Wal-Mart pickup, I noticed the sticker from my last oil change was dated just over a year ago with the mileage. Out of curiosity I checked my odometer and discovered that I have only added 1,007 miles since then. The bulk of that I am sure came from my daily commute to work those last few weeks before leaving. Despite making an effort to be more active and move about, this malaise came over me. I feel like I haven't done anything in over a year. I've learned that even though I'm a somewhat private person, I enjoy interacting with people on a regular basis, be them customers at work, or friends, or even just strangers I paused to help/chat with during my day.
As of writing this, I'm a few days away from getting my second Vaccine shot. And hopefully soon in seeing my roommates get theirs (I'm being the canary for them, so they know what to expect.) I've been fighting to drag myself back to some kind of socially acceptable level; even if I am feeling down I tell myself to stick to the rules for no snacking and getting things done. I can't begin to describe how weird/amazing it felt to walk into that Walgreens for my first shot, being the first store I have been inside since March 2020. The slow, but steady, signs of being able to safely go out have been a light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel, and I hope that everyone who reads this is with me in celebrating that.
tl;dr: stayed at home a year, nearly went fat, broke and crazy, slowly improving.