Things have been very different from the last update here, which was more or less a month ago. I wasn’t self-isolating then. I wasn’t terrified of going outside either. I wasn’t stewing in rage and unrest and anxiety that I don’t know where to channel. Not every single day, anyway.

For transparency’s sake: I took a shower this morning for the first time in four days. I changed my sheets. I did a load of laundry and did work I owed my dad for a press feature for the gallery. In many ways, life goes on. Truthfully, I feel very lucky that this is true for me. There is guilt that it isn’t true for everyone else. There’s frustration that I can’t do much about it besides stay home and not put others in danger as a transmitter of this virus.

I’m lucky I enjoy the company of my flatmate, and that there are people back home (and here) who care for me and look out for me. I’m lucky that even though it’s been really, really hard for me to find work here, I have the support of my parents and of people who believe in the work I do. It sucks, though, that the difficulty of finding employment or projects or something — anything — to do that will help support me has increased tenfold, and there seems to be no end in sight.

I can’t do anything. The small things that have helped curbed panic and anxiety (knitting, and games, and T.V.) are helping, sometimes, and even then, but not by much. It is alarming how much my body and my brain resist movement, but to give in to this stillness is not an option I’m ready to take. I hope I can do it. I know I can be very angry online, because I find so many things I believe to be unjust and unfair, but truthfully, these days, I’m mostly sad. I’m trying very hard to not let that consume me, and I distract myself enough most days, but I don’t know how much more I can put up this front. How much longer I can claim to be “fine” when everything around me is going up in flames.