The tedium is starting to get to me. I am having a hard time finding new challenges in cleaning out a closet, developing an existing hobby or searching for meaning in emptying the litterbox. There are just so many “new” and “exciting” things to be discovered in my apartment and I think I’ve been over them twice now.

When quarantine for the pandemic started, I was coming off two years that included a divorce and a bout with cancer. It is resolved, and I still hate my ex-husband. I’ve had plenty of time to ponder,  meditate, and journal my feelings. That’s why I’m comfortable saying that I still hate my ex-husband. For god’s sake, is there not a man alive who understands the phrase “my side of the bed.” Recent musings have been in the direction of considering dating again as I am no longer feeling disposed toward bodily harm when it comes to the masculine sex. I decided to give that a few months to simmer before I checked out any kind of singles app, silver or otherwise.

What I really want is an end to the boredom. The tedium of talking to the same people, engaging in the same routine, sitting on the same couch. I’m also tired of searching the internet for new ways to do anything. Please spare me the diatribe on how wonderfully well your exercise program is going. If I had more space, I’d have my own home gym too.  Part of the fallout from the divorce was that I didn’t get the condo, which had a gym in the building. Working out was always within reach. I keep thinking about that guy who logged in something like 31 miles walking around his kitchen table while in lockdown. How absolutely boring! It certainly made me wonder just how interesting his sex life was. Thirty-one miles around a table? Nothing was heard from the wife.

I don’t have a dining room big enough to walk around let alone clock in some miles. I don’t have an extra room for hobbies, crafts or the like. If I choose to engage in any kind of activities for entertainment, I have to get out the supplies, complete the tasks, put the supplies away and then clean up from whatever I was doing. This is so I will have enough room just to live in my apartment. As someone once observed, it’s kind of like playing Tetrus here. They said that before lock down and I’d like to find them to offer congratulations on their incisive assessment. When I get frustrated with all of the things that I have to move, I try to remember that line, hoping I’ll trick my brain into thinking that I’m playing a game.  Even that has become tedious.

As an extroverted extrovert, a typical day used to involve generating three or four hair-brained schemes that would be wildly funny if I had the time or wasn’t in some place where adult behavior wasn’t pervasive. Being unable to let my imagination run like that adds to the tedium. It seems that quarantine is nothing more than endless adult behavior so that we don’t touch anyone, or breathe on anyone or infect anyone. It reminds me of when we used to have meetings at work. The expectations were that we didn’t laugh, didn’t make faces at anyone, didn’t snap rubber bands and then look away. You know, act like adults. They’re so boring, which is why everyone hates meetings. Now that meetings are shirts on top and pajamas on the bottom, it sucks the fun out of thinking about how to disrupt these get-togethers. With everyone in sweats and/or pajamas, there’s no fun to be had. More tedium.

Quarantine will end. More and more people are being vaccinated and some people are beginning to travel. Especially older folks who are less vulnerable and less obligated to jobs, children, and making money. In the meantime, I’ll have to settle for searching the internet for new ways to do, well, just about anything.