This is a picture of the fire in my wood stove. I see a canine figure, like the head of a wolf looking to the right, the eye glowing the teeth glowing and flames arising from the forehead and snout. My sister who has made a living as an artist could not see it. My dad would have seen it had he been alive. I spend a lot of time looking at the fire these days. I love the fire because it keeps me warm and I'm home a lot, which I like. What I see in this picture shows me that other people don't see what I see, or feel how I feel, being home in the pandemic. Even at that, I am really tired of this pandemic. I'm tired of wearing a mask which I always do. I'm tired of not being able to go anywhere. And I can't find my dogs prescription food. While I enjoyed being home in the beginning, like everyone else I'm just really tired now.
January 19, 2022
My dreams have always been pretty vivid, but I have noticed a few intriguing new themes in my dreams since March 2020. First, I've had a lot of dreams where I spoke Russian or was trying to speak Russian. I haven't taken Russian since the summer, but I think I've had this many dreams in Russian because my brain is trying not to lose it and is maybe trying to remind me that I used to enjoy this thing, even though right now I'm preoccupied with other things. Second, I've had some truly terrifying dreams about life-or-death situations or my own imminent death. I have not had these nightmares very often (only 2-3 times since the pandemic started), but 2-3 times in a year is very frequent compared to the frequency pre-COVID, which was 2-3 times *in my entire 21 years*. Oddly enough, unlike many people, I almost never have dreams directly related to COVID, social distancing, masking, vaccines, etc. In fact, in most of my dreams, I am embedded in crowds of people or talking to another person at close range, indoors, and it feels perfectly normal. I think part of this could be because I've been watching so much TV during the pandemic, and immersing myself in worlds where people socialize normally effectively tricks my brain into forgetting about COVID. Third, prior to COVID I seldom if ever had dreams about dating or erotic dreams. However, since COVID hit, my dreams about dating anxiety, going on dates, liking other people, and sexy situations have skyrocketed. I think this speaks to my ongoing preoccupation with finding a boyfriend "for the next lockdown". Somehow or other, I find that the big lesson I took away from COVID was that I need to find a boyfriend, otherwise "once the next lockdown hits" (here a therapist would stop and point out the pattern in my thinking), I'm going to be as lonely and miserable as the first lockdown, and then once the next lockdown lifts it will be "too late" for me to get real dating experience and find a long-term partner. I suppose this preoccupation also speaks to my own regret for having taken college too seriously, in essence, focusing on building my résumé and getting good grades instead of building relationships. I think COVID has caused a lot of us to question the ways we lived our lives before, and I definitely feel like I realize now that I focused way too much on grades and career to the detriment of my social life.
April 26, 2021