After almost 10 months of ‘wake up, zoom call and repeat’, I finally broke down. In tears to be exact. At that time, I just fed up. I had enough of my screen, my gmeet setup, my gdrive, my calendar, my colleagues––the only people I had interaction with in months––oh fuck em all!
***
I heard a lot about screen fatigue––even used it as the main insight in one of my big idea presentations, convinced a lot of people of how it was real––but I never understood how it works. I thought it would give you more physical symptoms like, I don’t know, maybe migraine or blurry eyes or something. Never crossed my mind that the signs would more on to bipolar reactions to screens. Sometimes I’d excessively and obsessively spent hours scrolling and watching something online, like that was the only thing I wanted to do. On other days I would reject them aggressively––even want to smash them somehow, but then reluctantly turn back to them just because I know I have nothing to do besides staring at them. The cycle was vicious and I didn’t have any power to stop it.
Then came the anger. The feeling of constantly having any hot-and-cold relationship with anything/anyone would make you angry I supposed, let alone with a soul-less thing. It began to take a toll on me, I became quite bitchy all the time and I felt trapped. Well, technically we’re trapped in 2020 I guess. You might be able to finally go out of the house with this and that protocols and gears, but who were you kidding, we’re still trapped in this absurd year together with the false hope that the nearby 2021 would save us. Then I realized, the coming year wouldn’t be that much of a help, it would come in a blink for God sake. (If this is a fuck you note to 2020 and be the anti-thesis of my earlier thoughts `2020: The Year of Firsts`, then be it.)
Realizing this hard-truth I became more and more anxious. I felt tired all the time, even when I got up in the morning, even when I cooked and garden––two things that I swore my saviour a couple of months ago. I thought this was mental, and I don’t know how to go out of it. I simply drained. From the energy that used to fuel me to do things. Passion, happiness. I need to refuel––that I think I was doing when I watched 4 seasons of Crown consecutively or stalking a random basketball player online every night––the good ol fashioned kind of refuel. I think the concept is simple. Your mind and body are batteries, let’s say your phone battery. Need to be recharge with a simple thing; to connect it to a socket power.
If there was anything that I learned from this whole madness was, now I think I know what my socket power is. It’s not a person, or people (even though they sound pretty great also), it’s a freedom. To do things, to feel things, to be contained by not being contained in one single choice.
***
It was just a brief, a job request––a stupid and out of mind yes––but not something I’ve never had. Something that I would just send back and forget, in a parallel world where Covid never existed. I broke down in tears. And in those tears I know, I’m just tired. I’m tired and I didn’t know how to stop.
