🌡️ 03.28.21
Room-bound, again. Unfamiliar surroundings, familiar sunset. I love how the lamp, in its reflection, is pretending to be outside.
Guilt is tricky. This past week alone has surfaced so many iterations of guilt: of being stupid, of being terrible, of not being there, of being there. I know that most, if not all of these, are not "my fault." Still, it takes energy to tell myself this, energy that I don't have. Or, the only energy I have is to be angry at headlines like this: "One Year On: Bored of the Pandemic."
The nurses gave me an oximeter to track my blood oxygen levels and heart rate; I'm trying not to obsess over it. Staring at the numbers rising and falling. Sometimes my pulse shoots up while I'm standing. I try not to panic. I have to remind myself that I am more than just a string of numbers, but also, that numbers are the only things that make sense right now.
I thought of you today, of flowers, of sun, of studying on campus lawns in the spring. Everything seems so far away. Everything I have come to love.
—P