RANT
Burnout, Dengue, Death, COVID…What Else?
When Life doesn’t stop hammering you with troubles
I’m tired. My mind doesn’t f*cking work anymore. I stare at the walls for hours with a brain that’s become incapable of stitching thoughts. The worst part? I’m also not able to stream YouTube videos or binge-watching shows. My head can’t process it.
Sucks, I know.
There seems to be no escape. Mentally or physically, since I’m in quarantine for being affected by “What must not be named” for two more days. It feels like my life force is slowly spiraling into oblivion. Dramatic much? Probably. But that’s who I am.
I know I cannot go rambling on without giving you a background.
Everything started in September, or way before that. I don’t even remember now. Time has a funny way of playing out in your head when you cannot think. I was already tired from work, life decisions, and family pressure. Someday in August, I finally broke and decided not to have kids for a long, long time (hopefully never), and I informed my parents. They took some time to digest but took it much better than I expected.
So in September, I wanted to start over. A new life filled with peace and happiness. I think god would have been “muah ha ha ha” when I wished for it. We had booked a 10-day vacation on the beachside for me to slow down and restart, and it ended up becoming my worst vacation EVER!
We stayed in a homestay, where the owners had an extremely excited dog, which loved to get touchy with people. Since I have a phobia of dogs, it became a nightmare. In general, the dog was sweet, and my husband enjoyed playing with it, so I never brought it up. I got bitten by bed bugs and went on an itching fit for days. I got bitten by red ants near the beach, because of which my leg ended up swelling like a watermelon. Shoes stopped fitting me. Our scuba diving sessions got canceled because of the rains. My husband hit our car into a stone by mistake, and we ended up paying a huge chunk of money for the car service. And somehow, we never got the chance to chill, and it became one of the most hectic vacations ever. In foresight, we could have planned it better…but I wanted to go impromptu.
I had no idea so many things could go wrong in one vacation. ONE VACATION!
The problem was we couldn’t retake a vacation since we had used up all of ours. Then my partner was hit by a wave of cold, sinus, and cough for two weeks because of climate change. I, too, got sick for a couple of days, and the whole house only smelt of sick people. Yes, they have a smell too.
In the meantime, I got put in 3 projects and worked for 12 to 13 hours every day. Not getting time to eat, sleep, and whatnot. Even cooking a simple meal seemed like a humungous task. The house started getting filled with boxes of takeaways.
Slowly, I realized that since I never got my “vacation,” my brain had started to get tired because of a lack of rejuvenation. And I finally decided to put papers in my office and quit. Woohoo! I could not deal with the soul-sucking job anymore. Mind you, my team, pay, and support, everything was great, but I hated the day-to-day tasks I did. My husband once told me I looked lifeless with all the happiness drained from my eyes.
I put in papers to quit on November 22nd, 2021. And my husband got hit with Dengue on November 23rd. I still congratulate him on the timing.
We weren’t allowed to take leaves during the notice period in my company. And with my partner getting admitted to the hospital because of dehydration, the hospital visits that followed, carrying the full responsibility of the house, and intense care, I got even more burnt out (if that’s even a phrase)—all the while managing two projects (minimum 10-hour workdays, at the office).
I used to thank my manager profoundly every day for giving me the flexibility of joining in a couple of hours late. Of course, I had to stay up to complete the job, but at least I got the time I needed.
He took two weeks to recover. Dengue does take a toll on your body and makes you physically weak, making you incapable of staying up for too long. And while I thought I had finally gotten time to breathe and digest food, I got a call at 5 40 on the morning of Dec 21st that my grandfather had been hospitalized.
He suffered through pain and uncomfortableness for 14 days before he passed away on January 5th, 2022. Of course, it sucked. He was the closest soul to me and meant more than my parents. He was the one who brought me up and inspired me to become a writer.
But somehow, I was happy that he passed away at the end of the day. You see, he was in paramount pain, and the man had not slept properly for weeks. With thousands of wires injected into him, there was a point where he was begging to be released from the world.
I was happy because I did not want that bright soul to suffer anymore. And keeping him on a ventilator just for the sake of keeping him alive seemed utterly selfish to my family.
My family, especially my mother, were heartbroken. It was her father, after all. Somehow I didn’t spill one drop of tears during the funeral. I had almost become numb, already expecting him to pass away a couple of days back. I think I had accepted his death long before he passed away. And viewed any time I got to spend with him in the hospital as a blessing.
You know that thing called gut feeling? It worked wonders in this case.
We returned from our hometown to my city a couple of days later and started getting COVID symptoms from January 14th, 2022. Unfortunately, my sister fell sick a day or two earlier, and it slowly transferred to my husband and me by 14th Jan. While we sensed that our travel might be the cause and that we might be suffering from Omicron, we assumed it was a regular flu and delayed testing by a couple of days.
My husband and I had intense body pain, sore throat, fever, cold, and whatnot. He suffered from extreme sinus-like symptoms, while I could not stop coughing. I could not sleep every night because of my coughing fits (I still can’t sometimes). No medicine or change in position helped.
When we got the news two days later that his boss has been tested positive, we had to take the test since he was one of the primary contacts. And of course, the test came positive just 12 hours later, on 17th Jan 2022.
We have been in quarantine from then on, with my parents rushing home (they were still staying there to complete my grandad’s last rites) to cook and feed us. My father has been “delivering” food the past week and leaving it outside our home in disposable boxes for ease of use.
With my notice period getting over, my last day was on Jan 20th, 2022. While I heaved a heavy sigh of relief, I also felt everything pushing me over my last string. Events of past months came tumbling over, washing over me thoroughly, soaking me in depression. Probably it’s because I have just started to process or even given myself time to process anything. I don’t know.
I’m slowly getting out of COVID symptoms and still suffer from body pain and cough. But for the past three days, I have at least slept properly. Too much, I would say. But it’s okay.
With no clue how to move forward, and with just a few to-do lists and practices in mind, I’m hoping to get better in the next month. Even though I quit my job to take writing full-time, I don’t think I’ll move forward if I don’t take care of myself or my mental health.
Even accepting to take that kind of break was difficult for me as a person who has never paused to look back. But a few powerful conversations with friends has made me realize that. Extremely thankful to them.
You can support my work, and other writers on Medium, by becoming a member here. To read stories about everyday folks like you and me, who have tons of life lessons and experiences behind them, please sign up for my newsletter Through My Lens.
