Quarantine Coupling: The Diary

3 months B.Q. (before quarantine)

Monday, April 13th, 2020

5:45 AM. I’m a damn freak, but I love mornings. I love the peace, I love the quiet, I love the blessed 2-hour gap between my Quarantine Partner’s (QP’s) rising hour and my own. Like any millennial neurotic, I dive straight into a New Age morning regimen that is, technically, supposed to sprinkle glitter dust and sanity over my day (disclaimer: it doesn’t). Fifteen minutes of transcendental meditation (no, I don’t know if it works, and I probably never will), followed by 17 minutes with Melissa Wood Health (how is she always so zen? does she do transcendental meditation? ). I spend the rest of Me Time deciding between leggings, athletic shorts, and cutoffs (athletic shorts always win), making coffee and smoothies, reading headlines, and  looking for dining chairs on the Internet. My QP doesn’t care for dining chairs – I could chop up a tree trunk and he would gladly sit on a stump all day. Which, considering the upcoming recession, might be a viable option.

8 AM. QP is up. His morning routine is somewhat a divine ritual, and f*ing with it is pure sacrilege – I was instructed on multiple occasions that I have to just “let him be.” I hand him his morning smoothie like the domestic goddess I am. He thanks me and turns on NY1 on such high volume that my eardrums almost start bleeding. I want to no longer let him be. I remember when I used to argue with him about NY1, insisting that we should be watching highbrow global news, rather than metropolitan features on subway congestion. As I watch my city fight this never-ending (administrative and medical) battle, I am suddenly proud to be a New Yorker, to make up a mere wisp of the resilient, relentless, utterly phenomenal fabric it is made of. I realized I have gotten used to NY1, just as my QP has gotten used to putting his oatmeal bowl in the dishwasher, rather than filling it with water and letting it marinate in the sink for 7 to 72 hours. We are two fully-formed adults, each used to living our own ways, attempting to successfully merge lives. As NY1 is changed for CNBC, I thank whoever invented noise cancellation headphones and get to work.

10:30 AM. How can a person take three hours to eat breakfast? Why does he eat two large breakfasts with an interval, rather than one mammoth-sized one? Why does he have to work out, take calls, bang pots, and chat with me in between?! I stare at the plate of eggs that has been waiting for him for thirty minutes while he has been on a call, with an almond-butter-and-banana sandwich resting next to it. The last time I mocked him for his American palette, I ended up driving across the country with him. We thought it was the ultimate test back then. “If we can do this together, we can do anything together!” we said glibly, and made the decision to move in together shortly after. Little did we know that “doing anything together” would mean doing everything together, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the unforeseeable future. Being on the road, with the cars and the breeze and the ever-changing scenery, sounds like a dream plucked from a different lifetime.

2 PM. Work. Zoom meetings. More work. Turkey sandwiches. Argument about him turning on ALL the kitchen lights to make turkey sandwiches – it gives me a headache, but apparently he needs it to achieve a perfect turkey-to-matzo ratio. I’m accused of being a warden and imposing rules on him in the pristine prison that was once his Bachelor Castle. The turkey sandwiches are eaten in resentful silence. It has come to my attention that, while the variables of the situation stay constant (two people, two rooms, one nationwide lockdown), each day of this quarantine comes with its own weather prognosis. Today is mildly sunny with scattered rainstorms. I hope this storm passes quickly.

4 PM. It doesn’t. The Brene Brown-abiding part of me knows that this is not about the light or the turkey, but about the total loss of autonomy and personal space he is experiencing in his home. I want to scream that I, too, have lost my autonomy; that I, too, miss having my own space where nobody makes me unplug the electric teapot for safety purposes; that I, too, want life to go back to a world where we can clearly comprehend and visualize the future. He retreats to the bedroom. I ferociously clean the kitchen. Does anybody else feel a newfound intimacy with their kitchen and bathroom areas, much like prisoners may feel at one with their cells? How can somebody annoy me while not being in the same room with me? Can I drink already?

5 PM. I can definitely drink already.

Sometimes, I drink in the bathroom for privacy. 

5:30 PM. I postpone the drink decide to go for a run-slash-call-my-mom-walk, therefore granting us a precious hour apart. The West Side Highway is filled with fellow runners, who are probably also trying to save their relationships. At this rate, half of New York will be ready to sign up for a marathon by the time this thing is over.

On the way back, I spot a bunch of tulips sprouting around a sidewalk tree, a carefully rationed portion of nature. The sight is reassuring, yet it brings a bittersweet kind of sadness: for the passing of time, for the injustice of it all, for the grief spreading like a thin film over the world. I never know what will bring me to tears on a given day. Today, it’s a patch of tulips.

6:15 PM. I return feeling calmer. My QP is in the kitchen, getting ready to make dinner. The same man who used to stockpile takeout containers on his kitchen island is now a bona fide Julia Child, ready to join Instagram’s culinary cult with nightly gourmet meals (which my friends are headlining with their blog, Containment Cooking). The only thing I have learned to make during this quarantine is chicken soup, and only because my QP was sick for 10 days, and I could no longer justify buying $7 soups from the next door diner without feeling like an imbecile. I’m pretty sure it’s the only thing I’ll be cooking for the rest of my life.

I must admit, I’m quite attracted to QP when he cooks. As I watch him fawn over his John Dory with the adoration reserved for a newborn child, I suddenly feel very grateful to have him there. I also feel guilty, as if accidentally got picked for the wrong team in school. After years of bad dates and mediocre boyfriends, I feel an eternal kinship with the singles set. I am one of their people, so what am I doing here, in this kitchen, with this genuinely kind human cooking for me? I tell myself to relax. Anybody else have a problem relaxing?

Great John Dory though. 

Dinnertime conversation briefly touches upon our turkey spat. We both admit frustration with the situation and agree to try to control our inner assholes (his short fuse, my OCD). The thing that made this relationship different from day one – oh, fine, more like month four – was his insistence on this kind of direct, adult communication, a juxtaposition to my passive-aggressive romantic history. It’s exhausting, but I highly recommend it.

8:30 PM. TV time! When the quarantine started, we binge-watched Handmaid’s Tale (things are always worse in Gilead), but, since then, it has been impossible to find something we both want to funnel our brains into (all suggestions welcome!). I veto each option until I am called an attention-deprived millennial and instructed to try out Quiby. I retreat to my group chat. He turns on a show in which all people do is shoot each other with machine guns. Before long, it’s 10:30 pm and this nana is off to bed.

We made it. Through another day, through another micro-step in our relationship, through another increment of this odd journey we are all collectively embarked on. It dawns on me that, at this time of unprecedented uncertainty, I have found another kind of certainty that I have never known. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring. I have no way of predicting our moods, nor the news, nor the latest informational missiles the government will throw at us. But I know we will bear it. At times, less gracefully than at others, but we will keep going. And we will be okay.

Or will we?