Coming out of my [COVID] cage and I've been doing just fine!!!

(Except not really)

They say you need a certain amount of delusion to persist. For me, I suppose that was thinking I wouldn’t get COVID because I’d made it this far into the pandemic without an exposure. I don’t blame myself for catching the most contagious virus of our lifetime, but I had started going out more and subsequently letting my guard down leading up to the moment I met my match. It hit me so hard that I was bedridden for most of the first week, laying in agony as a war raged on inside my body. I couldn’t even enjoy the day when my debut cover story for Architectural Digest dropped because it was so unpleasant to be awake that morning.

Lykke Li’s new album, EYEYE, has served as the soundtrack for this mindfuck—it’s almost amusing how the concept for this project was to capture the intimacy of listening to a voice memo on a macro dose of LSD, meanwhile I’ve been washing down Tylenol and immunity boosting supplements with bottles of water. During my recovery, I’ve also been deeply moved by the starpower of Ethel Cain’s debut album (shoutouts to my friend Hayden for putting me on). In the midst of these dark times, Sky Ferreira returned with a fun new single that briefly filled me with excitement for the summer. I know that this was inevitable and there’s nothing distinctly divine about the timing, but I’ve been trying to view my experience with COVID like a mass purge. I don’t want to continue hosting all these toxins; I’m kicking and screaming for them to leave this vessel.

Everyone tells you to “rest,” but there’s no break from the pain—maybe you start to feel better for a few hours until you read the news about a mass shooting at an elementary school in Texas. (On the evening that I was exposed, I found out about the shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo on Twitter while I was going to bed in my hotel room.) How do you grapple with the reality that no matter where you go you’re not safe anywhere? These are things that can’t be blamed on the stars, there’s no logical explanation for random and senseless acts of violence. There’s no rewind button, we can only propel ourselves to move forward, but taking that next step is hard.

This pandemic has pushed me to my most vulnerable breaking points and while I’ve accepted every challenge along the way, I wouldn’t say that I conquered them all. I’m so frightened by the idea of being incapable of truly taking care of myself when I’m weak. What exactly am I fighting for again? This stream of consciousness has been brought to you by another weary woman in her prime.