I hear you before I even open my eyes. “Let me sleep,” I tell you. You ignore me. You start telling me things I am still too drowsy to understand, not to mention that you are the cause of the insomnia that keeps me awake, because you never stop talking and I never stop listening.
You keep talking. I begin to understand, though I still cannot grasp how you can have so much energy when you have only just opened your eyes. My brain still does not know what it is hearing, or does not want to understand what is happening.
You insist so much that you get me out of bed. But to do what? I do not know, because we are still in quarantine. Now that I am no longer sleepy, I go to wash my face. You follow me, never stopping talking. I begin to understand that you are worried about being shut indoors and losing touch with the world when you are such a sociable person. But what do you want me to do? We are in the same situation, yet I do not torment you the way you torment me.
I try to calm you down. I suggest we breathe together. You settle down for a couple of seconds. The fatalistic monologue returns. You fear getting infected even though neither of us has left the house, because the pantry is well stocked.
I go for a coffee. You follow me. The seconds we spent breathing to calm down have been lost in time. I make a coffee; you drink it. The caffeine in your bloodstream gives you a boost of energy. Now wide awake, you do not know what to do. You feel bored; there is not enough to distract you. I offer you a book; you do not want it. I suggest we learn to draw with an online tutorial; you tell me you are too old to draw. I suggest downloading an app to learn Mandarin—just to keep you busy for a while—and you refuse. The anxiety of being confined has worn a path between the sofa and the refrigerator. You look in the mirror and do not like what you see. You want to exercise to ease the guilt. I join you. Ten minutes later, you are already bored and do not know what to do. And that is only the beginning of the day.
I thought living with you was difficult until I had to live with me.
“If you cannot live with yourself, you will never be able to live with other people.”
Joel Osteen