Random Stuff

I can't do this

Monday, February 15

"I can't do this" I say, at eleven thirty in the evening, smiling quietly in front of the homework I should have handed in three hours ago, of which I have only written the first sentence.
My voice is calm and light. No one would suspect my burning eyes despite the blue light filter and the slight feeling of inner death that I can't help but experience in this kind of situations.
At this point, I have kind of stopped caring.
It's been a year, almost exactly. In a week, actually. 15 plus 7 makes... 23. Oh god, that's scaringly correct. On February 23, 2020, our world changed and came to a pause. I remember that day as if it was last month.
I had been to a party the previous evening. It was the first eighteen's party in my classroom, the second ever in my life. And it was double. The fourth year of high school... The year of eighteens. We had no idea they'd all get cancelled.
So we started off great. Two of my classmates were having the party together, so they could share the costs. It was convenient. For the occasion, my mum had taken me to a clothes shop towards the end of To. street, very close to the city centre. I don't really remember how we'd happened to find that shop in the first place, but it was really good. It had a lot of stuff that seemed handmade for me.
So she'd bought me something like five dresses, thinking about the number of parties I'd have to face... How wrong she was! I only ever used one, the first one. It's dark red, a simple shape. Knees-short, half sleeves, round neck. But it feels like silk. I really like it.
So we went to the party. My parents drove me to the northern station and from there I took a bus. It was dark already, but there were many people around, and it was a nice cool evening, so I wasn't scared.
I got kind of lost when I arrived, I didn't know the place and it wasn't easy to find, my Google maps probably wasn't working properly, so in short I had to walk around for quite a while before I actually found the place; and my heels were starting to hurt pretty bad. So I just sat down on one of the sofas in the small underground room that was reserved for us. All the others started to arrive. There was like forty of us, twenty classmates and about twenty other friends of the two protagonists. There was food and music, it was funny but my feet were hurting and so I was thinking about sitting down for most of the time. I've learnt to take comfortable shoes in my bag when I go at a party, now.
The cake was all right, except for the cream, of course. I don't like cream, but it's everywhere. We drank champagne, or, well, everyone else did... I don't really like alcohol, in general. So I just stuck with the non-alcoholic drinks.
It was about two-thirty in the morning when the party ended and my dad came to pick me up. I remember those moments very well. He talked about how we had some cases of that Coronavirus, didn't quite know where it'd come from, but the numbers were growing fast. A hundred and twenty-something, if I remember well. And the previous morning there were only eight.
It was very late when I finally got to sleep, so it was late as well when I woke up the following morning. I wanted to cry, because we were going to have a harsh week at school. Our Latin teacher had planned a big literature test on Tuesday, and I hadn't begun revising yet. We were all in the same situation.
After breakfast, I went upstairs, trying to find some motivation. Downstairs, in the living room, the news were on. My mum was hanging the laundry and my sister was on her phone. I was half-listening when all of a sudden they started screaming. I rushed downstairs. They were saying they'd close the schools. The association was immediate: schools closed meant no Latin test on Tuesday. I stood there, holding my breath. the class group chat was going crazy, we were all thinking about the same thing. It was about midday when the Prime Minister spoke to the nation and gave us our confirmation: no school. No test. How joyful! We wasted the whole day. No worries, no study. We were all so happy, we'd get a free week of vacation! Most students went out with their friends everyday, but I am more an insider and just dedicated myself to the things I love most: movies, series, reading and writing. Of course I also went out, but more because I had to, sort of. My mum is always saying I should go out more, so that's why I did.
The week ended, and it became clear that the situation would be longer than expected. So some schools started to get organized to do some video-lessons. We were probably among the first. Our school is not very advanced, but some of our teachers are very resourceful. English and Italian were the first to start, and slowly the others followed.
They called it "DAD", didactict at distance, or something like that. It was light and fun, at first. It didn't feel like school. We would wake up late, stay in our pjs and have breakfast during the first lesson and lunch during the last. We had so little homework, compared to what we were used to, that it felt like nothing at all.
But time passed, and things weren't changing. The virus was growing fast, and China had locked down. We started having restrictions as well. At first it was small things, wear a mask, don't go out in big groups, keep your distance.
No one respected or cared about those rules. And the results were horrible.
The numbers grew so fast that the government had to shut down and isolate completely whole towns, then cities, then regions. And when they announced that from the following morning no one would be able to leave the region, the trains were assaulted. The Central Station was a mess, the news said. There was an exhodon to the South. Which, of course, brought the virus with it.
Soon the whole country had to lock down, just like China had done not much before. The other countries laughed at us, said we were finding excuses not to work; but what could we do, with those numbers? The hospitals were in trouble already, didn't have any more room to help all people who needed. Hundreds were dying everyday. Soon we started hearing the sound of ambulances at all hours.
It was bad.
We were confined home and it was getting more and more difficult to follow the lessons. We were all stressed, and it was incredibly easy to get distracted by anything.
Not being able to test us properly, all teachers started to give us re-elaboration works, or texts to write and hand in. I always hated deadlines. They stress me out like nothing else can. And we had a lot of them.
My acne got worse, as did my hip pain. It would randomly start hurting, when I was walking or when I'd been seating still for too long.
But the worst thing was the boredom. There were many things to do, but actually, there was nothing to do. I tried to get my French back, to exercise my English and my writing, but really I couldn't find the will to do anything else then scroll through Instagram and read. I did read quite a lot, and I guess that was good.
My parents were home too, as most of the activities had shut down. But theirs still somehow had kept open. My mum works in the pharmaceutical field, my dad in the electronics. These two sectors were considered essential, and therefore allowed to continue their activities, but most employees had to work from home.
Our house in not small, at all, but it was still very hard to deal with the fact that all four of us had to work with our computers, from home... My sister didn't have a computer of her own yet, so she used our home one, or mum's tablet, or my pc sometimes. It was annoying, because I wanted to use it for my own purposes, but I knew school was more important.
Sometimes we'd argue, though. We usually argue for dumb reasons, as every pair of sisters, but being forced to live together 24/7 really made everything worse. And there was nowhere to go, except the balcony. But it was cold.
Spring came and we were still confined home. Things didn't seem to be willing to change, except the warm sun of the afternoons. I started spending long hours on the balcony, enjoying the sun, reading or listening to music or just chilling.
Only then I started to realise how I actually missed the contact with other people. I am an introverted, so I usually prefer being alone; and I always thought that I didn't need the company of others, at all. I discovered I was wrong.
"You only need the light when it's burning low", says a famous song. That is what I found. I was the last of my family to understand how stressed I was about being alone, but I guess my body realised it before my mind did.
The end of the school year, the first week of June, was nothing special. May was a bit stressful, but probably ten times less than what a normal May would have been. I decided that I wouldn't study a single minute the whole last school week. And I had no problems. No one asked any questions or annoyed me anyhow. It was quiet.
Summer started, and at first it felt good. It always feels good when the school year ends and you can sleep until eleven thirty in the morning without a single worry in your life.
Our parents didn't quite agree with that. They only let us sleep for a couple of days, and then started waking us up at ten, or some days at around nine.
I hate this, deeply, with all my heart. Vacation, to me, means going to bed at three in the morning, waking up at eleven and doing nothing all day. Waking me up early... has me dead tired for the rest of the day.
Summer life was really numb at first. I found myself wasting whole days without doing anything useful, nor anything I liked. Then I started going out, running, for a couple of days, walking around town, because out of town we couldn't go. I started taking long walks in the park, exploring it. It was hot, but fun.
We met with our classmates, one day. I was really anxious about taking the train, but things were going a bit better. Months of restrictions and lockdown had had their effects, and the numbers were going down.
July came, too hot but happy enough. I got back something I had lost for confusion and had been looking back to for some time.
I went to the lake with some of my classmates, and with others. We had fun, but we noticed that there were too many people on the beaches, the lake-shores. That wasn't good.
In August, to avoid traveling far and being in crowds, we hired a boat and went sailing on the west coast. We meant to cross over to the islands, but the strong winds convinced us otherwise.
My dad has a sailing license and likes to teach me some things. He had me piloting the ship some days. I tried to grab the wheel whenever I could, because it was the only thing that relieved me of sea sickness. The other children preferred to sleep, and I drove. I love sailing. The salty wind in my face, being so close to water, the screeches of the seagulls... It makes me feel free, in contact with nature.
We saw some beautiful places and isles and witnessed amazing starry nights. One of them, we were anchored next to a small island shaped like a half moon. It protected us from the waves, but it was very low and we could see the whole sky, shining as only those you see in the mountains or open seas.
Vega was bright, straight above us. We met her with our eyes if we looked right up.
The Summer Triangle was smiling down on us, lighting up our nights. My dad showed me five constellations of the Zodiac. I love stargazing. There are quite a lot of things I love, taking from my dad. He shows me and teaches me, and I take on his passion.
My "accident", if I can call it so, occurred just before leaving for the sea, on the last Thursday. I hadn't done anything weird or special, I was just walking... When all of a sudden I felt a terrible pang of pain in my left hip. I nearly fell to the floor, and had to sit down for nearly an hour. For two, three weeks after that I couldn't walk properly. You don't need to walk much on a boat, but when we'd land, to go visiting a town or just a restaurant, things would get problematic.
The second half of August, we spent in the mountains. We'd go for short walks, because I found it hard to walk, especially downwards, but I did what I could. They were good days after all, except for the nearing perspective of the new school year, which would start the second week of September. Mine, at least. Usually, and most of the other schools followed that tradition, we start in the third; but not this year, I suppose.
It didn't last much, anyway.
We had barely the time to get used to this new setting of school, with all those strange timings and safety measures, when, at about half of October, everything was shut down once more.
Summer was our mistake. We were going well, we needed only to keep our guard high, but we didn't. We opened the borders, and travellers brought the virus back.
The numbers started rising again and we had no choice.
My birthday was in December. It was small but good. My best friend and my family surprised me with a little home party.
Christmas was downtone. We were used to huge family reunions, with lots of food, games, and mess. We didn't get any of that. It was only the four of us, plus grandma. We got some food, but it wasn't the same. the only thing that stayed the same was the presents; but presents don't make Christmas.
New Year was downtone, too. We were at the lake, we had dinner with our cousins and, at midnight, ran out in the garden screaming happy new year and watching the fireworks on the other side of the lake. Not much, but at least we had our cousins, some family, someone to talk and play with.
January was the slowest month ever. School started again, and a couple of weeks ago we got a new government and started approaching "normal" again. 50% of our classmates go to actual school, and the other half does video-lessons from home; we switch every week. This is my second week in presence. It is a short one, we only go till Wednesday. Then Carnival starts, and we're home on vacation from Thursday to Sunday.
That's good. I'm kind of stressed. But I feel like this all the time, lately. And to cope with that, I've unconsciously started not caring about school. I do everything casually, and that's worrying to me. I've never been like this. I have always cared. But not anymore. My feelings towards school and everything it concerns are pretty much dead. I've lost interest in many things. I haven't catched the virus, not that I know of; but this whole situation, deriving from the virus, is killing me psychologically.
It's 1.19 in the morning. I've given up on the homework. I will just go to sleep, even though it won't change anything. Just tomorrow and the day after, then I will rest... And then begin again. It is exhausting. When will this whole thing end?