A Love Worth Dying For

I never thought isolation would be real. It was a thing we were groomed for as millennials. Nearly every film and book fetishized this post-apocalyptic theme, this dystopian future. It was bred in us and we almost wanted it to happen—just to see what it’d be like for real. I know I wanted to feel something different than the same old. At first, it was kind of nice to slow down.

I woke up without an alarm. I hadn’t set it. Can’t remember the last time I did that. My internal clock was precise. I usually woke up ten to fifteen minutes before my alarm anyway and enjoyed beating the ringer. Some days though, if I’d had a particularly late night the alarm would startle me awake and I could just feel my phone smiling sinisterly at me the way I did when I beat the alarm. Even when I beat it, I couldn’t turn it off or I’d risk forgetting to turn it back on and accidentally sleep in (ADHD things). This meant the alarm would still catch me, usually as I sat on the toilet flipping through Instagram. It was annoying, but far better than being startled awake.

So, I woke up with no alarm. Same time as usual. But no fucking alarm. After my morning ritual—long shit, brush teeth, wash face—no shower though, I always showered at night. I never understood people who showered in the morning. Why would you not shower at night when you come home dirty from the world stinking of a long day and get into your bed clean? It only makes sense to go to bed clean and warm. That way you save on having to change your sheets too often, and if you smoke like me, that smell is on your skin and hair and gets deep in your sheets and pillows. Anyway, I was done my routine and I realized I had the time for a proper coffee. Not some rushed to-go cup you sip burning your tongue on a moving bus while strangers bump you, so you gulp more than you intended and also scorch your throat (God, the things I hate could fill a book).

 I had the vanilla hazelnut coffee at home. The one from Costco (iykyk). I ground some fresh beans. The smell alone woke me up. I liked it finely ground. Not quite espresso-style but well ground so there’s no coarse chunks. I always felt like the coarse stuff was a waste, like it wouldn’t get out its maximum flavor potential. The coffeemaker was ready with water from the night before. Old habit. I made 4.5 cups. It was where my tolerance had taken me. After I set the coffee on, I meandered over to my computer to get some administrative chores out of the way. I was one of the lucky ones who didn’t suddenly become unemployed with the start of the pandemic but in a few months my contract would end and if the pandemic didn’t, I’d be out of work too. That’s the nature of precarious work.

The coffeemaker called me over with its soft beeping and I poured myself a full mug. I couldn’t remember the last time I had coffee from a mug. It was paper cups for a long time until I learned to conserve and got to making my own coffee that I took in an insulated metal bottle. You know the ones. The kind everybody has. I sat back down at my computer with my coffee, smiling. It felt so good to know I didn’t have to do a thing. Nothing. It was already done. I sent a few emails and work was done. I took my time sipping my vanilla hazelnut coffee by my window in my computer chair, watching as humans jogged and walked their dogs. At least they could still enjoy being outside in some capacity, for the time being anyway.

I lit a cigarette and took a long drag by my open window. It was still chilly outside in mid-March. I figured this might be my last pack. No point buying another one if we get locked down. It was a good time to quit anyway. They said that coronavirus is especially dangerous for smokers. It was time I gave myself a fighting chance. Plus, I had wanted to quit for a long time, it’s just with the amount of work I had, the stress demanded that nicotine rush. Now as things slowed down, smoking seemed leisurely. It actually felt like I had a choice. The smoke was an indulgence, not a fix. I looked at the rest of the pack. About half left. Perfect. I could drag them out for the next two weeks. That’s how long they said this’ll last. Maybe longer.

I opened Facebook to see how others were dealing with the social distancing. Scrolling through the posts, most about COVID-19, there were a variety of reactions. Some wanted to see the collapse of capitalism and a resurgence of socialism. Others were still in denial. Some posts had mistaken notions of Darwinism with references to the survival of the fittest. And then there were the conspiracists—I hated them most of all. One post said, ‘I have yet to meet anyone with corona, let me know when you do.’ How do you consider yourself a reasonable human and also believe there is a mass conspiracy where world leaders, medical professionals, the media, celebrities, podcast hosts, and independent news sources, all got together and agreed to spread misinformation in order to...what? World domination? I don’t even understand what possible outcome would make these people come together to lie to the public. If anything, people are terrible at keeping secrets. Personally, I think the conspiracists just like to think there’s something going on all the time. It justifies not having to be well informed. Critical thinking is hard. So, they get a pass on being intellectually lazy while maintaining a mystique of secret knowledge.

I’d had enough social media for one day. I figured I’d take this time to write down a few projects I wanted to complete while I’d be in isolation. If I could do one a day, I’d be content. So, I made a list. The first was to complete the administrative tasks to finish out my contract for work. This meant going through four email accounts and clearing them out while dealing with any outstanding issues. It’d be a day’s work (On Vyvanse, half a day). After that, I could focus on sending my manuscript to publishers. Hopefully, they were still taking them during this time. Once that was done, I had the freedom to do a few things for myself I had not gotten around to. First, I wanted to read a novel. I hadn’t read anything for myself in over two years. I used to read avidly, but every time I picked up a novel, I guilted myself into putting it down for some work-related article. Any time I had to myself my immediate thought was—I could be working.

Aside from reading, I wanted to try out some art. I had the supplies. I used to paint and draw and even sculpt. Hadn’t done any of it in years. So, I put that as one of my projects on my to-do list. I also wanted to clean my apartment—all of it. A real deep clean. Something I neglected for a while and the scum had built up in the corners and under the furniture. I figured if I cleaned, I could also throw out a bunch of junk I didn’t need, you know, to minimize. Not sure this was the best time to minimize, but I wanted to declutter. Spring was around the corner so it would be nice to have a clean place. I thought perhaps this would blow over by then. The timing would be perfect. 

***

People were struggling together and apart to make sense of a crumbling world filled with multiple and contested meanings (see Butler). An undecidable world suited for no one in particular. That was isolation. The feeling of never really fitting in, at least for most of us. Even the elites felt panic strike their hearts because for once they weren’t impervious. They must have thought at least once—what if I lose everything I love?

For each of us, that meant something different—what we love. I didn’t really feel the impending loss coming. The first week in isolation wasn’t that bad. It was only light isolation anyway. People still went outside but maintained social distancing. I heard a woman outside scream at a passing jogger, ‘six feet you asshole!’ We were still allowed to shop and see one another at our own risk. Many people obliged the official requests and some were enjoying the slowing down of production. This meant a little more time to tend to ourselves, like an unexpected vacation (well, not for everyone). People converted to home offices or tried to scrounge for savings and relief funds. The news kept coming with the prime minister’s daily press conferences. Each passing day sanctions got tighter and Trudeau tried to relieve the public with financial stipends and flowery words of hope.

I’d just finished watching the prime minister’s address with my coffee. Both had lost their charm. His words of hope didn’t mean anything anymore, I just cared about the facts—what are the next measures? The coffee too became a pragmatic weapon targeted at laziness. I couldn’t even taste the vanilla hazelnut anymore. The first week I had been so motivated and certain that with all the time I had to myself I would get so many things done. My house was still a mess. I hadn’t painted or drawn anything. All I could bring myself to do was get some computer work done in the mornings after coffee, then veg out for the rest of the day watching garbage TV. I thought about prisoners keeping themselves stimulated with workouts, reading, and writing, in their tiny cells. They had captivity and limited options. I had the internet, my phone, the ability to cook, go outside, ride my bike, and whatever else didn’t involve other people. Somehow my options didn’t feel narrow enough, so I succumbed to boredom and apathy.

My place was stocked up with booze from an early desperation run to the liquor store. I hadn’t realized alcohol would be listed as an essential service along with groceries and pharmaceuticals. There was a fine bottle of Irish whiskey staring at me from my shelf. It was only noon but what else did I have to do? So, I poured myself a little just to have a taste. It’s such a weird feeling drinking in the day. It hits you quicker and harder. By the time I’d had about three glasses—don’t ask me how much that was—I was proper drunk. Trust me, I’m no lightweight, but day drinking just hits different. I thought I’d write drunk and light a cigarette. Flashes of Hemingway spun through my head as I typed some gibberish on my computer screen. I think I wrote maybe 1 two paragraphs of poetic nonsense about the virus before I felt woozy and needed to lie down.

When I woke up about an hour later, I was feeling groggy and disgusting. I remembered why I hated day drinking. My head got hot and I was completely lethargic for the rest of the day. I ended up consumed by my couch, in and out of consciousness, as I binge-watched some painful reality show. When the sun went down, I reached for the whiskey again. At night, I could handle my drinks. So, I ended up polishing half a bottle to myself, went through the rest of my cigarettes, devoured hours of porn, and passed out by ten o’clock. This became a daily routine.

***

Things slowed down significantly. People began to realize that the pandemic wouldn’t blow over so soon. Information online began to disseminate with an impending reality that this thing could last up to a year before vaccines would even be a possibility. As the quarantine seemed to tighten, people got antsier. All borders were closed. Only “the essentials” remained open. The lack of social contact began to feel alienating despite the broad reach of the internet. It wasn’t so much that we got bored with the free time in isolation, we just didn’t know what to do with it when the idea of what was meaningful began to change. What world were we living in? The one we left behind didn’t seem worth saving. At least not all of it. We had just gone through the Australian bushfires, a failed US presidential impeachment, the near brink of war between America and Iran, a continuing reminder that the world was dying, and this was only in the first couple months of the new year. COVID-19 was just a wake-up call that we’re not invulnerable to the damage we cause. It wasn’t some progressive currency, it became fact.

Over time things stagnated as people began to lose their optimism. Still, there were a few hopeful reminders of humanity. Cat videos didn’t lose their appeal. Everything became digital. The first wave of virtual humanity spread on social media with pictures and videos of return-to-nature fantasies, people singing to each other from balconies, and video conferencing of everything from board games to group sex.  A collective community thrived online with all sorts of services, tutorials, and mostly live streams to keep us connected and engaged. People were creating, learning new skills and languages, taking courses, playing together, and a lot of it transferred into a trade economy. Much of it was out of necessity for mutual survival. Despite government relief funds, many freelancers and sex workers either didn’t qualify or couldn’t apply. Plus, there was a backlog of applications, nobody was answering the hotlines, and processing took weeks before payments arrived. And these were so-called “first world problems.” We were lucky compared to some of the horror stories from around the world—starvation, police and military states, brutality and violence.

I remember I was on the phone with service Canada trying to figure out why I couldn’t get my application for employment insurance approved when I kept getting another call. I couldn’t answer at the time and I was frustrated as hell because nothing was making any sense. I couldn’t get rent relief because I had given postdated cheques and the landlord wasn’t picking up or answering my emails. I didn’t qualify for the relief fund, so I was trying not to lose my shit at the person on the phone telling me they couldn’t help me with my EI—and my phone kept going off from someone else trying to call me. If that wasn’t enough, I got disconnected from service Canada after having waited for three hours to get through to someone who couldn’t help me. I can’t say if they hung up or the call got dropped or my battery was too low on my phone, but I nearly threw my phone against the wall! Then it started ringing again. That same whoever-the-fuck was trying to reach me. Without answering, I screamed—'What the fuck do you want?’—right at my phone, flinging spit onto the screen. It wasn’t a saved contact in my phone either and that same number had been calling incessantly. I finally picked up.

“Hello?” I said, almost yelling.

There was no answer. I raised my voice “Hello, who is this?”

 I heard a whimpering voice say, “It’s Sam.” 

It took me a second to figure out who this Sam was but then it clicked. I still didn’t understand why they’d called me. We had never talked on the phone before, just in person and over text or online. We’d worked on a project before where I did a shoot with them for some mutual promo stuff. This wasn’t what the call was about. I could tell by their voice. Sam was panicked but kept the conversation at a whisper. Turned out their nesting partner was out for a grocery run and this was the only time Sam had to make a call and ask for help. Sam said Sean had been abusive before but never like this. I asked if they had anywhere else to stay and apparently their parent’s place wasn’t an option. They said it would be trading one form of abuse for another.

I wondered why I had become their lifeline. Sam said everyone else they knew was isolating with family or partners because most people they knew were young and didn’t have the means to live alone. Apparently, Sam thought of me because I had been uncommonly kind and understanding in the past. Shit. I had been isolating with extreme caution on my own and was perfectly fine with my routine. But what was I supposed to do, tell Sam I couldn’t help? I had the space in my apartment but then again, I hated living with other people. I’d tried it in the past and it really got under my skin. I remember becoming inexplicably irate just hearing my roommate’s breathing. Like, why the fuck did he have to breathe? That was my internal logic. Fuck.

My place was perfectly quarantined. If Sam came here, everything could potentially be contaminated. It gave me anxiety. Sam said their partner was due back soon and this was the last chance to escape for the foreseeable future. I had no choice. I told them to pack only what’s necessary and get out of the house immediately. Before leaving the house, Sam left a note saying they’d gone home to stay with their parents. They didn’t have any money, so I told them I’d send over an uber. Within the hour Sam was at my door in tears. I told them to shower first and then we’d talk.

***

Whatever stress and anxiety we had as a collective turbo capitalist pathology was replaced with existential angst and alienation as we slowed down and faced our mortality for the first time in over half a century. Loneliness and sadness seeped in through the hardened cracks of our former shells. It was an unpleasant rebirth, but some would say a necessary one—it was either that or extinction.

In the process of birth, you come into the world crying from the shelter of a warm and nurturing womb—an enclosure of safety. You’re brought into existence fighting to live, not understanding the world around you and attempting ever-quickly to adapt. You crave attachment, closeness, and intimacy, and if you’re lucky you get some. You stumble through growing pains until you hit that bittersweet teen angst where you’re simultaneously the most important person in the universe and also have the hardest problems that no one else can really understand. You first become conscious of mortality and you both dread and fetishize it. You want to control it. Then as you settle into adulthood you develop a mature sadness and your anxiety becomes commonplace. You work to fit in, to function, to continue, and you don’t really know what for, but you hope the process alone will suffice to unravel the meaning you’ve been searching for. In all this, you don’t truly realize what’s important to you until you lose it. It’s like banging around in the dark searching for something until your eyes adjust only to realize you still can’t find what you’re looking for and all you really need is some light.

Quarantine brings all the existential dread to the forefront. You look through your own dying self to see if there’s anything worth saving and contemplate what for. Mostly, you spend time thinking about all the things you took for granted. Nostalgia begins to sink its long teeth into every memory you ever held dear. The saddest thing is, what if you die not knowing that all the things you love, you owe to other people? What if you never get to hear another foreign language spoken to you again in some strange new place? The confusion and thrill of being somewhere unknown. What if you never get to let go of all the hate and resentment you held onto trying to protect yourself? How much did it protect you? What if another sunset drive is gone, or a drink in the park, or a barbecue with friends? What if the feelings of awe and wonder are all spent? What if forever is lost to us?

I thought I had saved Sam from an abusive situation, but it was really Sam who saved me. Before they showed up crying on my doorstep, I had been alone for so long I had forgotten what the smell of another human was like. It really doesn’t take too long to sink into a hole when you’re alone. I hadn’t realized how much I needed the company until Sam was there. My finances were royally fucked. I had no prospect for future work and apparently didn’t qualify for employment insurance. Hardest of all was that the situation was getting worse by the day and my mental health was spiraling into a depressive episode, unlike anything I’d experienced in the past. Two years before I had gone through a dark hole during the holidays that lasted until the end of February. It had been the first time depression got me so bad that I had no will to live. Before that, it had been bearable. This time I felt those same gnarled thoughts enveloping my mind into that familiar darkness and it made me hit the bottle hard. I was drunk nearly every night, usually going to bed crying.

In the mornings I used the pain as fuel to write but it started getting pretty ugly when I realized that I was writing for nobody. Who was this creative force meant to save? It certainly wasn’t saving me. If anything, I was destroying myself to get it out, while each day got bleaker until it seemed as though we were beyond saving. People didn’t need writing and hope to live, they needed vaccines and food and ventilators. They needed to see the death toll drop for once. They needed to have a real reason to live, not to read about it.

When I told Sam what I had been going through they actually listened and held my hand. That touch alone did it. The flood gates opened, and I cried like a baby. We held each other in support, and I had never been so glad to have someone with me in my whole life. Sam also told me about their situation with their partner, Sean. They were living with him and the place was under his name despite most of the money coming in from Sam. When quarantine hit, Sam couldn’t see clients anymore and had to resort to creating content online which only brought in a small fraction of what they used to make. Sean was frustrated and began to pick fights with Sam about everything, which turned into screaming matches, broken glass, holes in the wall, and threats that he’d kill himself. Shit had gotten so toxic that Sam would have preferred getting sick and taking their chances in the hospital. I thanked them for calling me instead.

Sam had only brought a backpack with some clothes, toiletries, and a laptop. After we each poured our hearts out and got a little tipsy, they asked if I would be okay with them producing some online content while staying with me. They said they could do it in the bedroom during the day while I worked at my computer in the living room and they wouldn’t bother me. I asked what equipment they had, and they showed me their laptop and phone. I laughed and pointed to my cameras, lights, tripods, mics, and computer. Sam smiled. “It’s all sitting here collecting dust anyway,” I said.

***

Once you settle into banality you face yourself in the midst of an alienated world. The virus spread quickly and cleared out the people you didn’t know. Until it began to suck away some people you did. That was when you knew it was real. The pandemic wasn’t even exciting. There was no post-apocalypse and no renegades retaking the remnants of a collapsed civilization. This wasn’t Mad Max. We were the dinosaurs staring into the abyss with dopey eyes.

It wasn’t even romantic enough to elicit real poetry. It was just too real. The comforts of home became sterile reminders of a world no longer available to explore. So, you asked yourself how you could come to be a lover of fate (see Nietzsche)? If nothing promised could ever be good again, perhaps you’d come to terms with having been part of the problem. You might ask yourself if you were to blame for the state of the world. What part did you play?

It was once the indeterminate permanence set in, that people really started to lose it. Once friends, family, and acquaintances began to go, that the feeling of being alone really hit. Once the idea that this wasn’t a vacation but a real pandemic, that people got to thinking this may be the end for us. Not for all of us maybe, but for enough of us that the survivors couldn’t go on pretending everything would resume just as it had. There was no return to business as usual. Things might not be okay. But if it did end for all of us, would any of it have been worth it? Would it be worth reliving again in every detail?

During the worst of it, Sam and I still had each other. We actually got along famously. My technical skills combined with their performance made for excellent content. Still, the sales of the online videos stagnated during this period. The death toll had reached its peak and many people had incurred real loss. We managed to survive from the bit of money coming in and a few donations from some avid fans. It seemed that no matter how bad things got, people still needed to get off or have some entertainment, so the requests for custom videos still trickled in here and there. Most of all we had fun making them and it kept us busy and creative. It allowed us to have some kind of routine. That’s what kept us going.

In the mornings we’d have coffee together and discuss what kind of content we wanted to create. We’d take turns making breakfast for each other and eat together watching Seinfeld or Friends to get a dose of that 90’s nostalgia, which was more than ever bittersweet (Was life in teh 90s ever really that sweet?). Then we’d get to shooting. I’d set up three angles from different cameras, prop up the lighting, check the sound levels, and make sure the backdrop we made together was in continuity with previous shoots. Sometimes we did scenes in the bedroom or the bathroom. After we got all the footage, we’d have lunch together and watch something a little more serious. We decided we’d go through our favourite shows one by one: Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Lost, Breaking Bad, Pose. Then I would sit at my computer and edit while Sam did all the social media promos and communication. By the evening we’d end up playing board games or take each other on dates, which meant indoor picnics, blanket forts, or listening to entire albums on vinyl with our eyes closed.

The best parts were when we got into late-night conversations right before bed. One night Sam asked me quite casually as we were falling asleep what my biggest regret was. It must have been my half-conscious state, but the answer slipped out almost immediately—that I had lived so long without taking the time to know myself. I was caught by surprise and my tiredness went away instantly. Sam asked what I meant. It took me a second to assess what I even meant by it. I told them that this period of isolation forced me to look at myself without distractions. I had felt depressed and bored for so long because I hadn’t known what I truly liked to do. I hadn’t known what I wanted from life, only what I needed to do to be productive. For so long I’d tried to be independent. Not need anyone. Then when I was isolated, I lost the will to live. I felt guilty for needing other people when I had worked so long to convince myself I didn’t need anyone. I hated the thought that I could be dependent on others. I told Sam I wasted so much time forcing myself to believe in bullshit. When I finally learned to let that go, I realized it was okay to need other people—it was so fucking okay.

***

If only…

Humanity had to learn to adapt. Unfortunately, change sweeps slowly over this stubborn herd. This time it wasn’t a choice though. This time it was necessary. People fought obstinately in the beginning until the fight died in them at the realization that it was all a waste of time. Some relented into apathy, others kept on distracting themselves any way they knew how, yet most of us found ways to rethink what it meant to be alive. Eventually, the process of reassessment began for all of us, knowing we’d be entering a new world. Perhaps we had to destroy this one to create a new one—maybe a better one—one we would find joy in reliving. If we couldn’t love our fate, we had to create a fate we could fall in love with.

So, we were forced to reimagine our values. To realize this world had been unsustainable. To drop our useless prejudices. Get rid of our excesses. Reevaluate our needs. Most of all, relinquish our addiction to commodities. The hardest part was unlearning the relationships of usury we had forged with ourselves. Somewhere along the line we had been trained into submission and began to believe that we couldn’t possibly deserve to be treated well, or that we somehow had to earn it. This illness rooted itself deeply in our flesh and bones and we learned to treat ourselves with contempt. We had internalized this usury and refused to believe we deserved anything good at all. We had beaten ourselves into feeling we had to earn our own love. When you’re constantly told you are unworthy of love because you aren’t enough, don’t produce enough, don’t fit with the ideal image in the likeness of some God, are imperfect, impure, broken, sick, perverse, defiled—you begin to believe it, and no amount of affirmations can counter that indoctrination. When we finally saw that we were all broken, we realized that maybe it wasn’t us, maybe the system was broken.

To learn to love ourselves again meant we had to create the conditions around us for that love to be possible. It took a lot of pain to get there. We had to restructure the ways things functioned. When we had realized how valuable love had become in its scarcity, we worked together to create it more equitably. We had come to understand it as something we all deserved. Through compassion, giving, trade-based micro-economies, communal-care over self-care, solidarity, and restructuring profit hoarding to profit sharing, we slowly adapted to a slower pace of life in which the art of living trumped productivity. It wasn’t going to be perfect. There was no utopia and we weren’t naïve enough to assume it was even possible. But it was a new life that we began to find worth loving. 

…If only.

***

When I woke up, I told Sam about my dream. In this new life we were celebrating the 20-year anniversary of an Art House Coop that we, and a few other members, had founded when the quarantine lifted. It was out of necessity that we had rented an old house with a bunch of artists so we could have a place to live and support each other. All the original members shared ownership and we inaugurated a new class of young artists into our retreat program for the anniversary celebration. Most of these kids were born during lockdown and only knew about the old world second-hand. They lived through the growing pains as the world around them changed but they were marked by a different attitude than us “old timers.” They had unfettered hope unmarred by old world cynicism. Luckily, it was horribly contagious. They made me feel reborn with a chance to reclaim what it meant to be alive.