Day 68: A Quarantine Love Story

I wake up around 10 AM and am somehow still too tired to open my eyes fully. You know when you wake up, but your eyes aren’t ready to wake up with you? That’s where I’m at. I get up to pee. I turn the lights on in the bathroom. The light hurts my eyes more, so I turn them off. I pee in the “dark” (it’s 10am so the sun has been out, and it’s plenty bright in my bathroom), and then I head back to bed where my partner is sleeping soundly in his classic position: belly down, one leg bent at a 90-degree angle, and his head covered with a pillow. And I try to go back to sleep.

I wake up an hour later. “Let’s try this again,” I think to myself. I open my phone even though I’ve been meaning to break that habit. My phone isn’t the first place I want to start my day. It will either lead to mindless scrolling or tearing my hair out while I read the news. And I’ve been meaning to workout earlier in the day so that I feel more accomplished faster. But alas, here I am, in bed scrolling. After a few minutes, I realize my partner is also awake because his hand is petting my face. His eyes are still closed, and I secretly love this weird little intimate moment. I don’t know why I feel the need to love it in secret, but I do.

Our morning starts off as usual. We come out into the living room and tidy up any mess we left from the night before: late night snacks, Magic cards, beer cans, etc. Then we volley back and forth with our records of who last did dishes, trying to determine whose turn it is this morning. We can’t make eggs until the kitchen is clean, of course.

This is our routine, and some days I love it. Others, I hate it. Those days are usually the ones when it’s my turn to do dishes. I hate doing the dishes. It was my chore when I was a kid, and the kid in me feels like now that I’m an “adult,” I should be making someone else do them.

After breakfast, we hear a knock at the door. A package! Yay! This is also part of the routine. We moved into our apartment right before quarantine, so we’ve been spending a lot (possibly too much?) of our money on household items. And we’re ordering online because we are responsible quarantin-ers, damnit! Also, we deserve this! Treat yourself!

The package is for me (hah! I win!). It’s allergy medicine and a book that comes highly recommended. It’s on everyone’s “Best Books to Read During Quarantine” lists.

While I finish cleaning up from breakfast, my partner says something about a friend of his, let’s call her Rachel. Rachel is a weird subject for me. When my partner and I first met, he told me how he had just gotten over this years-long love story with his friend from high school, Rachel. There’s a ton more to the story of Rachel, but it’s not particularly important to this quarantine love story, so we’re going to skip ahead to where I said: “You’re really on a Rachel kick, aren’t you?” “Yeah, we’ve been reconnecting lately, which is nice.” To which I replied, “Yeah, I feel like you’ve been talking about her all the time!” This led to what I would not call a fight, but it also wasn’t a jolly conversation.

I don’t feel jealous of Rachel. My partner makes me feel loved every day, and I know he doesn’t have feelings for Rachel. So why did I say that?

After a little bit of back and forth and a half-assed resolution, I leave the room and go back to the bed. The bed is my comfy place. I’ve meticulously curated the perfect combo of pillows, mattress topper, and blankets, and I would spend all day there if I could.

And as I’m laying there scrolling through Instagram, I try to figure out why in the world I felt the need to make that comment about Rachel. I’m not jealous. “I mean, I used to be in past relationships, but I’m definitely over that now,” I think to myself. A pause. “Maybe I am jealous.” I quickly return to the Instagram stories that I am mindlessly watching, and a meme pops up on the screen.

Then I laugh. I laugh really hard. At myself, at the ridiculous non-fight that I’m having with my partner, and at the fact that I am currently on my period and Venus is in retrograde and this is too spot on.

Then I go back out to the living room to show my partner this meme and apologize for sometimes being a little crazy. We chat briefly then continue our day. We play Magic, we rearrange the furniture, we order food, I start to read the book I got in the mail, and then it’s time for the workout I was supposed to do today.

I don’t want to do it. I’m tired, and I feel unmotivated. But I didn’t do much today. I didn’t finish that script I was supposed to. I didn’t do my laundry. I didn’t memorize those lines I was supposed to. I didn’t meditate or journal. Damnit.

“I don’t know if I’m gonna workout,” I tell my partner.

“That’s okay,” he says.

“I know, I just didn’t do much today.”

“And that’s okay.”

“I guess I read some of my book.”

“That counts. Self care! Those moments of playing a game or reading a book, those count.”

“Yeah. You’re right. Self care! Self love!”

And then my partner says something that completely breaks me. I mean, really just rips my soul open, and the clouds part, and the angels sing, and I lose it.

He smiles, shrugs, and proclaims:

“…I’m not wearing any underpants! I haven’t been all day!”

And I laughed. I laughed until I cried. And he beamed from ear to ear that he made me laugh that hard. And then I cracked open a beer and wrote this story. A story from one day of quarantine that is so quintessential to Us. And that is why I love him.