Brain pronblems indeed.
I came down with covid last week. I was lucky enough that this was my first time getting it, and lucky enough to be fully vaccinated and boosted before it hit. It still knocked me out quite a bit, and I’ve been dealing with residual exhaustion and brain fog ever since. By around 4 PM every day, I can hardly keep my eyes open.
Since my work (this comic! this Substack!) is so flexible, I’ve been able to take time to rest and support myself through my recovery. My oldest kid also came down with covid at the same time, so we’ve been watching cartoons and eating takeout as we isolate from the rest of the family. (I got to share a cult favorite of mine with him—Invader Zim—which was a treat for us both.)
Yesterday was my last day in isolation, so I’m venturing out into the house again and making a list of everything that needs doing now that I’m back on my feet.
I have fallen behind in a lot of things—my art, my garden, my projects around the house, my exercise routine—and I’m doing OK at allowing all these tasks accumulate without it feeling too oppressive. I try to remind myself that I give myself these tasks because they help me live a life of my choosing. I don’t live my life to do tasks.
Capitalism and the cult of productivity want me to feel guilty for neglecting the tasks. How will I grow my business? How will I become a successful artist and support my career and my family if I’m not consumed by endless productivity?
But productivity is so often like a hungry ghost. No matter how well you feed it, it’s still hungry, still bone-thin and ravenous. I’m learning to see it for what it is—a perfectionist monster, a tool of oppression, a kind of corporatized brainwashing that keeps us dissatisfied and hungry ourselves.
I know most of us do feel these pressures, and it’s incredibly unjust that we’re pressed and stressed about providing for our needs—especially since we’re all in a sort of recovery these days. The pandemic has been traumatic, the lack of community has been traumatic, the continued disregard for Black lives and Asian lives and disabled lives has been traumatic, the callousness of right wing extremism in mainstream US politics has been traumatic.
Meanwhile, we’re all just going back to work.
Brain pronblems.
I’m hoping the fog and exhaustion brought on by covid will lift, but if they don’t, I hope I can afford to give myself the space I need to keep doing the things that call to me. I hope I will always make time to cry and grieve and watch cartoons and nurture this little tender heart inside me. It’s so hard to stay soft in this world, but I’m going to keep trying.
Thank you so much for being here, and for sharing your stories with me—here and elsewhere in this funny little online speakeasy we’ve set up. You’re weird and creepy and cool and I love that you’re out there.
Thank you. Sending love,
🖤Becca Lee, the Haunted Librarian🖤
Well this is 100% relatable. Thank you for the solidarity in how hard it is to overcome messages of Capitalism and Productivity.
Sorry to hear about the covid spell, Becca. Hope you make a quick recovery! What you said about the need to be productive really resonated and was heartening to read. Living a full life can mean such different things to different people. More power to you!
(Your comics are amazing, by the way! Love them!)