Something in Nothing

You’d think I’d finally start sleeping in now. After who knows how many months of waking up at six every morning just to listen to screaming children all day, you’d think I’d stay in bed. Instead I find myself waking up at seven by accident most mornings. I try to stay in bed as long as I can, because an early start now only means more hours of nothing, but I’m usually in the kitchen by eight despite my best efforts. The silver lining: Sam is always up too.

Sam has been my rock whether he’s realized it or not. We’ve developed a routine. Wake up, text each other. Groan via text about how early it is. Roll around in our respective beds trying to find a new comfy spot that doesn’t exist. Then text when we’re finally getting up. Whoever gives up first texts the other. When I get the text or when I’ve sent it, I rise and the day begins. I start the coffee and do last night’s dishes. Breakfast is a banana because I refuse to come out of this quarantine with any extra pounds and exercising is entirely out of the question. I’ll stick with my banana and I’ll milk the shit out of it. I assume Sam has a similar ritual, although that mother fucker has the metabolism of a 16-year-old male body builder, so he always appears with something ~slightly~ more substantive than my bendy yellow mush container. We meet on our balconies. I breathe a sigh of relief. We raise our coffees and cheers across the distance. Realistically, if we wanted to, our balconies are so close we could knock our mugs for real. The distance is small, but right now it’s as large as the Grand Canyon. “Any dreams last night,” Sam asks. I run back through my night. “I think I dreamt I finally made it to Toronto. But for some reason Corey wasn’t there, and I was alone in a random GTA suburb with nowhere to go.” “Not so much a dream then, sounds more like a nightmare to me,” Sam comments. I consider this. While in my dream state it seemed very normal, not terribly dreamy, but not negative either. I suppose when your reality is being trapped in an apartment living your own version of the movie Contagion, a dream like that hardly has an impact on your feeling of well-being. At least I was outside. I share these thoughts with Sam. He seems to understand; I imagine he’s felt similar things lately too. He asks if I’ve done any baking lately. “Sourdough,” I say, with my head hung in shame. I tried to resist that particular bandwagon, but in my defense, I was baking bread long before quarantine started. It was a logical next step. I’ve been baking a lot, but keep coming up against the same issue I’m sure many of us are facing right now. Baking every day, but only seeing 1.5 people a week, leads to a definite oversupply of sugar in my household. My roommate does her best, but usually ends up eating cookie butter straight from the jar instead of my carefully crafted cupcakes. I’m stuck with a lot of leftovers, hence the banana. My browser history is full of searches like “low calories brownies”, “oil-free muffins”, and “how to make cookies taste good without sugar, butter, or flour”. Often a hopeless pursuit. My boyfriend consistently tells me to just lean into the self-isolation sixty, but I consistently reply that eventually we’re going to get out of this and I’d like to still fit in my jeans at that point. Especially with all the stores closed, I’m stuck with the clothes I’ve got. Still, my go to activity when my boredom hits an unbearable peak is digging into my “Recipes” bookmarks tab, closing my eyes, and pointing. I tell Sam I’ll start leaving my creations on his doorstep. We sit quietly for a few minutes. I think one of the more valuable things to come from this experience will be an increased comfortableness with silence. I’ve always struggled with it; always trying to fill the quietness with words, no matter how mundane. Ironic, because I’m not really too good with small talk. I’m bad with the emptiness, but worse at filling it. So now I’m practicing. Sometimes Sam won’t even let me speak. “I’m helping you grow,” he’ll say. “I’m 5’2 now and I’ll be 5’2 when this is over,” is my response; but he persists. And he is right in doing so. This fear might well be the downfall of my current relationship, so I would do well to try to overcome it. I think I’ll write a book about this experience: Love in the time of Coronavirus. The short answer is there is none, at least not for me. I had just begun a new relationship when shit hit the fan. We were still in the “getting to know you” phase. Now we’re stuck. We can’t get closer, but it also feels foolish to end things when they could be so good. We’re in quarantine purgatory. And I’m afraid to call him and talk for real because I fear the potential silence. I consider silence on the phone as a sign of boredom, of insufficient spark, of a relationship that’s reached its end stage. I’m not ready for corona to kill my hope just yet. So, I indulge Sam when he tries to train me, and I try to “grow”, but I can only do it for so long. “Ok, that’s enough for today. I need a new Netflix show, give me suggestions,” I insist. Silence over, comfort restored. Sam laughs at my inability to last for longer than two minutes in his bootcamp, but indulges me anyway. “The Stranger is high-quality,” he shares, “full of suspense, keeps your mind sharp. Only 8 episodes.” He adds that last bit half-joking, poking fun at my famously short attention span. “I’ll look into it.” I’m simultaneously desperate for new shows and terrible at starting new shows. If I’m not interested within two minutes I bail, a response not unique to Netflix for me. Another reason this pandemic is so unfortunate for my love life: I actually found someone I lasted more than two minutes with, and then the internet cut out, Netflix went dark, and I can’t even pick up the fucking phone.

 Sam and I chat for a few more minutes, and then decide it’s time to get dressed to maintain some semblance of normalcy. We say goodbye, knowing it’s only a brief break, as we’ll be back here in a few hours for lunch. It’s a simple routine, but right now it’s the only comfort we know.