OK, SO...the Global Pandemic Happened, Part One

OK, So... The global pandemic happened. Here we are September 2021, 18 months almost to the day since our first lockdown. I was living with my boyfriend at the time, Sean. Sigh. What to unpack first? This experience has been so psychologically traumatizing and I feel like I am still trying to recover and heal from it. Sean and I had a lovely one-bedroom in West Hollywood. Normally I worked from home twice a week, and Sean went to his workplace downtown every day. Overnight around March 15th we both had to work every day from home - in a small apartment that did not have a workspace for two people. I took over the desk in the living room, and Sean took over our dining room table. He needed a lot more room since he's a clothing designer and needed room to spread his sketches and fabrics, and the mulitple monitor for his computer. First crisis averted. We had to make accomodations for each other if we had zoom meetings or phone calls. Occasionally I would take calls in the bedroom, while Sean was on a Zoom in the dining room. Not much privacy in our little place. This worked out fine, for the most part. Both Sean and I enjoy working out at the gym, which will surprise no one considering we are gay men in West Hollywood. But with gyms closed, we had to think of new ways to stay active. First options were taking runs outside, or going to the nearby parks to workout. Then they closed the parks. THEY CLOSED THE PARKS. First of many, many very stupid decisions by the LA County Health Department. (FUCK YOU BARBARA FERRER). Just so we are clear, I am pro-science and pro-public health restrictions. I am just very anti-stupid and capricious rulemaking. Outdoor masks, closing parks and public restrooms, and the obsessive surface cleaning really got on my nerves. Say it with me...SURFACE TRANSMISSION IS NOT A THING with Covid-19. It's airborne. ALSO Outdoors are very safe. Granted the Delta variant later in 2021 was more transmissible but still...people overemphasized the possiblity of outdoor transmission. Then they closed all apartment building common areas. Even the OUTDOOR parts. WHAT THE FUCK? Add to this that Sean and I never got a single moment alone, away from each other, for weeks and weeks on end. I love Sean. But I also love being alone. I used to get a few hours every day when Sean was still at work to be by myself. That was robbed of me too. I got to the point where I was annoyed by Sean's PRESENCE. I once flipped out and said "WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE??" As if he had some other option to be somewhere else. The restaurants and bars closed. I didn't see friends in person for months. Do you know what that does for a person's psyche? Let me tell you. CRIPPLING DEPRESSION. I should back up a second and mention that I had begun going to therapy in the year before the pandemic. I was feeling increasingly frustrated with my work, feeling lost, rudderless, deflated, and I lacked focus. I will go into greater detail about this time later, but suffice to say my shrink diagnosed me at this time with clinical depression. It was suggested at that time that i could take medication, but I declined and focused on going to therapy. When the pandemic hit and the crippling (i mean...CRIPPLING) depression hit, I caved and asked for the medication. Wellbutrin, you saved my life. I honestly think it might have saved my life. A lot of my depression symptoms looked a lot like Attention Deficit Disorder. Knowing that my Dad is a textbook adult ADD sufferer (although i doubt he suffers...his family suffers) I thought I might have that too. Wellbutrin really addressed the lack of focus and brain fog that I was feeling. I'll have to devote an entire post about my depression. So here we are, stuck indoors, no gyms, no parks, no restaurants, no bars, no friends, and all we have is each other. Sean did bake banana bread for a while. That was pretty awesome, to be honest. I baked cookies. I perfected my pasta sauces. I cooked twice or three times a day. I really enjoyed that. The kitchen became my safe space. If I felt lost or bored I would either tidy up the kitchen or cook something. We watched a TON of TV and movies. At one point we tried to watch every Marvel Cinematic Universe film. That was 32 movies at the time. We ended every night like we always did, in bed watching The Golden Girls. For a while we switched it up and watched Murder, She Wrote. We stopped having sex. The depression was killing both of us. We would take long drives in the car, all around the city just to get out of the apartment and do something, anything. While those drives really helped me clear my head, sometimes it just made Sean even more depressed, knowing we had to go back to our prison/apartment. I have to admit, Sean's lingering depression was killing me. I felt like i had to be his rock when he was feeling so down. Sometimes I had to tell him it was my turn to be sad for the day. Sean was and is the sweetest, most gentle and loving person I've ever met. He always took care of me. And i took care of him. But i admit that many days I felt like he was bringing ME down with him. I know it's tough for people like me who like to "fix" things that there was no solution to our problem. We were stuck. We were depressed. We were gaining weight and feeling like shit. I absolutely hated feeling the way I felt. I hated that Sean was sad all the time. Sean was anxious about everything. He was overly cautious and we would bicker about whether or not i could touch the elevator "down" button with my naked finger. (Spoiler alert - you can totally touch things with naked fingers and not catch Covid-19). Months dragged on. Oh and during this time our President was a total dickwad named Donald J. Trump. TO BE CONTINUED.