FLOATING IN OVERWHELM

There’s a moment when it’s pointless to fight. Struggling in the water makes you drown quicker. You’ve got to learn to relax in the pain, to float.

Late last week he found himself huddled in bed, wrapped in his blanket like a warm burrito. With a finger swiping to his phone, a shiver ran through his spine: the remnants of a stubborn cold that was either on its way out or a fresh strain starting anew. He couldn’t tell which. It wasn’t like he meant to be so busy but somehow the universe sneakily had other plans. A random visitor brought a chance encounter that turned into a birthday invitation the same day another friend was graduating one day after someone else held an intimate dinner for a bon voyage party for her return home to Brazil (with the hope of coming back to Amsterdam in the new year). As a result his cold seemed to linger, the virus taking advantage of his blundering days and sleepless nights that compromised his weak immune system.

There was a part of him that was grateful to be exposed to new connections, something he had wanted for months if not years. It felt like it signalled a turning point, not so much in an attitude towards meeting new people but surprisingly to him, a turning point toward himself. The years of negative self-talk, nothing so loud or debilitating but a whispers of consistent nit-picky-ness and morsels of self-deprecation, had finally reached a boiling point. It wasn't so much the desire to rid himself of these voices but the new sense of clarity he felt with the awareness that they existed that brought him some semblance of peace. Maybe not entirely peace, but a sense of surrender perhaps. Acceptance.

He scrolled his phone in grey scale because he’d heard that it deterred you from spending wasteful time on the device. While it did work to some extent, his eyes seemed to more or less adjust to the black and white blandness which seemed to defeat the purpose. One acquaintance told him that she got rid of social media on her phone altogether only to replace her addiction with Reddit and Vinted. It’s an insidious cycle. Mostly he noticed that Instagram was making him feel hollow inside. The endless scrolling of pictures felt impulsive and reckless somehow. For the first time ever he actually imagined what it would be like step away from social media for a while (though let’s be honest: highly unlikely). The phone is a poor replacement for a friend. He longed to see the world through someone else’s voice rather than a picture staged to imitate the real.

There’s a moment with a cold where it’s pointless to fight. Struggling in the water makes you drown quicker. You’ve got to learn to relax in the pain, to float. You just have to lean in and give in to the shivers, the sweats, the sneezing, the coughs that make your lungs ache. Is it a cold or COVID? Who knows these days. As he unwrapped himself from the blanket, he remembered he had a flu shot coming up.

It was less about the cold but the sense of overwhelm that was creeping in. He was drowning in his own thoughts of deadlines and dinners to be cooked, dishes to wash and shows to watch, the exhaustion of deleting people from his mind who’ve ghosted him but somehow live rent-free, and the energy it took to not succumb to the cringe of replaying awkward moments of failed conversations and attempts at real connections.

Placing his phone on the nightstand, he took the extra pillow and hugged it to his chest. Sleep didn’t seem to be coming but he didn’t let that fact bother him. Eyes closed, he let himself be guided by his breath, grateful to feel the oxygen fill his lungs.

All he wanted in that moment was that delicious sense of rest. Not just to heal his weakened body but to rejuvenate a soul longing to be showered with self-kindness.