The week following the worst of my COVID-19 symptoms was more an exercise in psychological perseverance than it was a scrimmage between man and virus. By the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, my body had won the battle with SARS-CoV-2. But my mind was losing a war against itself.
My girlfriend and I had broken up two months prior. Understandably unable to handle the pain of visible separation, she had moved in with a friend. She left me with temporary custody of two cats and a mountain of her paraphernalia while she figured out her long-term living situation.
Losing the best of friends
Two weeks after my ex-girlfriend and I split, one of my best friends died. Like me, he had battled his own rare disorder, Peutz-Jeghers syndrome. Benign hamartomatous polyps developed in his intestinal tract, causing intestinal bleeding and obstructing his bowels. The condition put him at very high risk for intestinal cancer. He fought the cancer and underlying condition as much as modern medicine could. At 37, he sadly lost the war.
Losing a friend or family member is difficult no matter the circumstances, but no thirty-something expects to lose friends their age. Making the whole situation even more heartbreaking, he left behind a wife and toddler.
For me, he was among the greatest of friends. We coached each other through heartaches and career moves. We were their through the best and worst days of our lives. Without him, I do not know if I could have endured the Great Recession. We imbibed. We bitched. We debated. We broke bread and bottles. He was often the first to read my writing.
He, like me, always wanted something more from life. Part of me wonders if that was part of what took him. As much as he loved his wife and daughter, there may have been no earthly object or force that would have ever fulfilled him. Perhaps he has now has peace at some great celestial wine tasting.
Madness turns to loneliness
Sitting at home with COVID, all I could do was think about my broken relationship and my dead friend. Existence itself had become pointless, as it had for much of the pandemic, with each day irregularly folding into the next.
Other than 15-second Sunday visit from my friend, I had not laid eyes on another human being in over a week. Even then, she understandably stayed 30 feet from my front door—no hug, no handshake, no verbal exchange.
For someone as extroverted as myself, this was torture. I wanted to go to the store, the gym, the office, anywhere with people just to remind myself I was not the science-fictional last man on a post-apocalyptic Earth.
I wanted to find hope again. Then, and only then, could I find love again.
Thanksgiving quarantine, sponsored by Taco Bell
Though my taste buds were slowly returning to form, my tongue could barely discern spicy from sweet, let alone detect delicate nuances in flavor distinguishing fine global cuisines. As such, most of my quarantine diet consisted of Taco Bell doused in enough hot sauce to stress my senses and burn my taste buds.
Lingering loss of smell
Other than the congestion and loss of smell, COVID symptoms only took about 36 hours to go away. But ever since I first acquired SAR-CoV-2, my smell and taste have been off, so much so that wine tasting has all but screeched to a halt.
Synthetic perfumes, bodily or household, all smell like Chanel No. 5. The fragrance section at Macy’s or Dillard’s is an exhausting nasal exercise, a Sesame Street game for adults: Which one of these things is not like the other?
“What is all of them, Alex?”
Pepsi Zero Sugar has a weird chemical taste that goes far beyond what I could detect this time last year. Fruits smell and taste a bit off, though I cannot identify which ones. And cooking and dining out is less fun because my the nose plays such a large part in detecting and defining flavors. As such, half of my meals are basically healthy snacks. Why put in the effort for something that is hardly tastier than peanut butter and apples?