Day 78: Where Do I Go From Here?

Day 78: June 12, 2020
Global Cases: 7,743,173 Deaths: 428,373
Egypt Cases: 41,303 Deaths: 1,422

Bahi Ashraf
Psychology Alumnus

I remember the first moments of every morning, the glinting of soft sunlight – blurred formless by my shortsightedness – a close-up of whatever bed sheets I have on for that day, and the memory of my night before. 

I don’t remember dates or days (embarrassingly, even months at one point) but time passes in repetitive cycles of tired mornings, heavy afternoons, and sleepless nights; my rhythm is still out of sync, months into the quarantine – my body rejecting its recent confinement. 

Frankly, the only distinct parts of my days are the mornings, when it has not yet set in that this will, interminably, unfold like every memory I have of every other day for the past I don’t know how long. Time seems unreal, how do I know any of this is happening? 

If it wasn’t for the faint memories reminding me of last night’s sleeplessness or this morning’s enthusiasm, how would I have known that today is in fact not just a part of one endless hedgehog-day kind of experience? 

I get up out of bed and as I clean my face and brush my teeth, I prepare myself for the day’s itinerary; what routines I want to work on, what project I’m obsessing over, what expectations I have for the days to come – very mechanical, but I don’t know if it’s optional at this point.

I find that on most days the burn of productivity I find in the mornings quickly falter at noon, dying out completely as the sun does as well. 

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The afternoons are repetitive and exhausted, and as drained as I am at their end, when night creeps in … I still can’t sleep. I can’t find it in me to acknowledge the day is gone, that it has passed and is no more and a new one must now come and begin the loop from the start.

I can’t accept that I am stuck here incapable of finding some relief from the suffocation of the day to day. Then again, I wonder, how privileged I am to feel this tension, that of having to sit at home (ultimately safe and comfortable) and struggle to accept the fact I can’t be elsewhere.   

More often than not, I find myself far away from the things my old life revolved around; whether I’m detached from them or disinterested in them, it makes no difference right now. 

It almost feels like everything has been suspended outside of time. I try to read first thing, flipping through pages of books written far away from where I am that situate in another time and place. 

What do I do next? Do I play some music? Do I go for a run? You don’t really have much choice if you’re making your choice within restricted borders. 

I spend most of my time thinking, just that, sitting and thinking; I wonder where things will go from here, I wonder if anything might be the same after, or maybe if it will even matter.