I Will Do the Right Thing, and I Will Be Extremely Bitter About It
When the systems have failed you, personal responsibility is hard.
Winter is descending upon Chicago, and all my quarantine coping mechanisms are dying like the leaves. The skies are gray and a cool slick wetness covers everything. The coffee shop patio I sat at all summer is closed. Now when I try to sit outside, my joints get stiff and a chill rapidly seeps into my core. The lake is frigid. The parks are muddy and devoid of people.
To share a drink in the backyard with a couple of friends, I need a parka and layers of blankets. To find privacy I have to hide at the topmost floor of my apartment’s dusty stairwell. To get any work done I have to brave a bus dotted with unmasked people, and ride it eight miles south to my ghost town of an office.
It’s only open once per week, my office, and technically I don’t need to be there. Going downtown is an unnecessary risk. An extravagance I might not deserve. Yet I brave it every week, I look forward to it actually, because it’s the only place where I can focus on my little meaningless work tasks and pretend to be a human with an imaginable future.
Lucky, I’m so lucky; I have an office, but I don’t have to visit it if I don’t want to. I have an safe apartment and a…
