Love (and Self-Love) in the Time of COVID

Originally published on December 7, 2020.

The early stages of quarantine were an exciting time for me. My fiancé Jessica and I had bought our first cat together, and we were looking forward to what we thought would be a mini staycation with each other and our new fur baby. Granted, we both had to work from home, but being an introvert, I now had a legal and moral reason to not be social.

I finally had the time and energy to do both old and new hobbies: I got myself a skateboard and started cruising around the neighbourhood, much to the chagrin of my neighbours; I bought an online Japanese language course on Udemy and started making myself flashcards; I got back into web development in the hopes of landing myself a new job (I hated teaching ESL online); and I started exploring the expansive world of the Witcher 3.

A couple months in, the problems started to appear.

The unpredictability of everything became a dark cloud of anxiety and misery. Would I be able to hug my family again? Could I ever sit around a table with my friends and play D&D? When would I be able to sit in a cafe with a book?

And then were the effects on my relationship with Jess. Because we live in a basement apartment, there was nowhere either one of us could go to be alone. I would teach my online…