Crashing through in Corona Time

Working on my essay on the pandemic blues. Big ups to J, as always, for helping with the editing:

Corona Time is as weirdly social as it is intensely technological. When we can’t turn it into quality time, a lot of it seems to be about managing the contraflow of the Internet coming back at you. Now I’m a black belt worrier who’s been in and out of therapy for a few years and kvetches incessantly about not finishing things. More so than most, screens flashing with the engagement of others can lead me idling away in the Scroll, waiting for the next fix. That’s the day stretched out, the negative space of expectation. That’s where anxiety does its work.

The Ex had good self-help game and was clever about things. She understood you have to know what you want from others, and why, before they give you anything. When I got swallowed up into oh-my-god-no-one-likes-me  negative space ,  she knew how to pull me out. It’s a paradox that self-worth only really clicks when mutual love is involved.

I look at our pictures and try not to forget. I do this because I’m about to enter a Zoom room and the Zoom room is catnip for the socially anxious — you might as well call the Gallery View the Poker Face Switchboard. And all I know I want is make friends and then some.

Along with its cousin the low-grade depression, anxiety is the ailment du jour and it is all about time — time spent thinking versus time spent doing. Stress hard about the next milestone and before you know it you’ve skipped half a day’s work, the day after you have more anxiety, and so on: anxiety reverberates, filling out days with nothing but endless thinking and heartburn.

Somewhat fittingly, because it’s built-in with the lag of remote communications systems, Zoom socializing is also all about time, or rather timing, the split second where you can insert yourself in the conversation without talking over someone else. I spoke while someone was having a turn — are they giving me a look? I made a joke — how many happy faces do I get? Am I getting coldness or just bad signal? Do I get to tell people what’s new, or stick to shooting breeze? Now I’m receding because I’m thinking, now I’m feeling left out. Do I engage with someone privately, confirm I’ve misinterpreted? If I do, how long until the little ball drops that means my message has been seen? 

There’s someone among the Gallery View’s mosaic of faces I want to gracefully inform of my newly single status. But the Zoom Room is a jungle, with everyone speaking at everyone and none of the narrowing circles of conversation that pool naturally in a real hangout. The Zoom room is a large, crowded non-space and I don’t get to sense the air between me and the other. I skip too many turns, lose myself in interpretation, unsync. Then the Zoom room — all the social platforms — billow and envelope the little mezzanine flat, make it too large to handle.

I look at our old pictures, caught between expectation and memory. For alone time, Corona Time feels awfully crowded, peopled with digital ghosts and remembered others.

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