DECEMBER 29, 2022 – In retrospect, I’m surprised by my adaptation to circumstances, but a couple of days ago, behind my astonishment lay self-doubt and rising fear.
For the past 13 months I’ve lived a “bubble existence.” It was that long ago that I was last inside someone else’s house—the Connecticut home of our son Byron and his wife, Mylène. And since November 2021, I’ve been inside a grocery store only four times—none lasting more than five minutes. Except for medical clinics, I’ve not entered a public or private building of any kind. Until now, I haven’t obsessed about my bubble existence. I’ve simply adjusted, accepting patiently what necessity requires. Photos and accounts by others of their travels, restaurant feasts, concert experiences, museum visits, sporting event attendance, and indoor gatherings with family and friends are references to a world in which I no longer have any firsthand connections.
I’m hardly seeking sympathy. A salient benefit of my bubble life is that I’ve learned to enjoy life vicariously. In the main, I’ve been as happy during this strange period of my life as I’d ever been before. As I said at the outset, I’m amazed by how well I’ve adapted to my isolation.
Two days ago, however, I was shaken from my complacent adjustment. This disturbance caused me to think about the larger implications of my seclusion.
The great lurch occurred not as I entered the chaotic scene at an airport turned upside down by weather-related flight disruptions amidst the normal frenetic holiday travel season. It will still be many months before I can enter an airport terminal. No, the jolt occurred while I was alone inside my car—a bubble within bubble—driving to a 3:10 appointment at a clinic barely three miles from our house. My narrow objective was to get my second Covid vaccination (my stem cell transplant procedure in August had “deleted” all prior vaccinations; I hadn’t “qualified” for my first (new) Covid shot until December 5).
A short biz call that came in just as I was leaving for the appointment consumed precious minutes from the margin I’d built into my projected travel time. Greasy roadways and intersections stole the rest. Bad directions by MapQuest made me seriously late. A journey that on a good day I could’ve walked was taking more than 30 minutes by car, and I still hadn’t reached my destination.
I was fit to be tied, especially when a lefthand turn and “banana peel” street surface left me spinning my wheels when I attempted to cross a double set of light rail tracks. In the moment, the usual calm “me” snapped. Everything of the past year—my complex disease and its equally complicated treatment; my near-total quarantine from the world because of my compromised immunities and the concomitant imperative to be re-vaccinated for everything, starting with Covid—it all crashed down on me as the bright light of an approaching train glistened off the shiny rails. (Cont.)
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
