one hundred days

The 100 day milestone of 'rona lockdown sure did hit hard. I cried and napped almost exclusively for two days straight, something I haven't done in a while. 

Last week was euphoric. I wrote in my notes whilst sitting on the train that it felt blissful and delightfully exciting. 

it feels like there is so much to look forward to, and nothing to dread. I suppose I hope it can never get as bad or as strict or as lonely or as scary as it was

(side note: i rlly hate the new blogger, and can no longer work out how to make pics good quality - any tips??)

I sort of wish I'd documented the feelings a little better but I managed to see some of my favourite faces, get drunk multiple times, and visit the place most dearest to my heart. Beautiful highlights include lying in the sun of Hyde Park with my best friend, drinking cider, laughing, marvelling in total awe at finally seeing each other. The sunny botanic gardens and feeling a warmth and freedom. Sitting under a tree in the rain, and then in Radcliffe Square drinking gin in the golden silence, and nearly missing yet another train. Crying to another friend at the overwhelming emotions of it all. 

Yesterday, I lay on my floor surrounded by my miscellaneous belongings and paper and copious books and just cried and cried. I felt so much. I think the last fourteen weeks finally sort of sunk in, what I had missed, how much I adore my friends and how much it hurt that I couldn't spend blissful summer months with them. Visiting Oxford was magical and felt like home but walking into my locked room, left as a total still of the before corona times, felt alien and outdated. I sort of struggle to remember that that life belonged to me. 

I also think it sort of hit home that the elated trajectory I had idealised last week of endless progression just isn't true and life isn't going to revert, no matter how much I sanitise my hands or dream of it disappearing. 

So 'rona is bringing some odd feelings this week. I am feeling uneasy about turning twenty-one, am lost in an odd self-contempt and worthlessness, and I have a lot of thoughts I need to process about endings and beginnings and what it all means. This summer, really, is mostly just work. I have a lot to get through and focus on, and I suppose a pandemic is the best time to do it. I've got a dissertation to research (and apparently 'start writing' by the end of summer to 'front load'), and a plethora of pre-reading to tackle for next term. It is terrifying that this will be my last paper and my last 8 weeks of essays written in 4 days and 400 years of history learned in 2. I need to figure out what might come *next*, and try not to get caught up in the 'not-doing-enough' rhetoric. My degree is enough, surviving a pandemic is enough, and accepting the emotional exhaustion is enough. But it's hard to feel that when everyone around you seems to be succeeding and creating and exploring. I'm dreaming of summer plans that oscillate between illegal and improbable, and exciting and spontaneous. I am trying to exist in the thrill of promise and possibility, and not living beyond next the next seven days, even if I can't stop thinking of Paris. 

Today, I am making bagels, trying to avoid the headache induced by too many hours on my phone, walking my usual route and trying to make progress with Reading Lolita in Tehran. There also remains a mountain of shit to put away, washing to do and hoarded items to part with. 

Has the centenary of corona brought any odd feelings for y'all?