Quarantine Diary - Ninth day, August 8th, 2021: A sexual fantasy, unhelpful people, the cost of visualizing happy endings, a strangling dangling hope

Today is my 9th day in quarantine. I can’t help but look forward to leaving here. If everything goes right, I can leave here today. After all, I was retested 2 days ago, so the results should be back by now, ideally. Today is Sunday, so leaving here today would allow me to start the next week afresh, which is a huge psychological advantage. I think that going home on Monday would somehow taint the week, even though the effect is probably negligible.

A sexual fantasy

I started having a sexual fantasy. A threesome, to be exact. Well, I guess that’s normal. I’m still a single man in his 20s after all.

Unhelpful people

I asked a medical staff who was checking the SpO2 for the room when I can get the results back. She replied: “When it’s available we’ll inform you”. That statement doesn’t provide me with any kind of useful information. She didn’t even tell me how long on average after which people get to hear about the results. She told me what I already know, that someone will inform me when I have my results back. Maybe I’m overreacting, but it’s a very uninformative thing to say because such information is too obvious. Of course, I will be informed when the results are available. What I wanted to know is if I can get the results back TODAY!

The cost of visualizing happy endings

Even though I tried to not fall prey to imagining and visualizing the moments before, during, and after my release from this facility I failed at that task today. The concept of hope has obtained a gripping form and it’s aiming for my neck.

I’ve been unconsciously looking at the phone because I know that there will be a call that puts an end to my stay in this facility. I know that it usually takes 2 or 3 days for the results to get back, so it may not be today. Yet, there’s a 50/50 chance of coming home today. Still, I can’t help but be held captive by the belief that today may really be it!

The odds were almost to the point of nonexistent previously, so it makes statistical sense to have more faith in today. But, If I recall correctly, the old lady who stayed in my apartment said that she was here for 10 days before she left. If my memory is correct and that was true, the evidence would point to me leaving here tomorrow, not today, which would be disappointing.

I don’t exactly remember the specific time when that old lady was informed that she was going home, but I remember that she left around 4:30 PM to 6 PM. As today is drawing near that block of time, I haven’t received a call yet. Hope is certainly beginning to strengthen its grip upon me, making me feel more suffocated and desperate.

A strangling, dangling hope

Hope has been strangling me until I can no longer concentrate on anything else but the fact that I’m holding on to it. I have to place the phone within my field of vision so that I will not miss the call if it ever comes, which is a rational thing to do considering that my phone seems to malfunction and there’s no ringtone on an upcoming call. But the same phone, staying in peripheral, also keeps drawing my attention as I’m trying to read a book. I can’t help but anticipate and visualize that call that will put an end to all of this. I can’t put the phone out of my sight either because I can’t still rule out the possibility that a call may come and I may miss it. When you feel powerless and have to rely on something trivial as a phone call, you feel desperate. That’s what I was trying to avoid from the beginning, but unfortunately, it seems like I lost that battle today.

As it is 6:30 PM, and seeing no sign of people leaving the building block that I live in, I can at least be certain that today is not the day where people can go home, assuming that the facility release people in flocks instead of separately. That means that it’s most likely tomorrow. Tomorrow is Monday, and I have a meeting with the marketing team on Monday which I have skipped for 2 weeks. I feel uncomfortable skipping another one. Regardless, reality dictates that I won’t be going home today.

Previously

https://dafuqis-that.com/2021/08/10/quarantine-diary-eight-day-august-7th-2021-being-drawn-to-the-darker-aspects-of-life-despair-happens-once-or-twice-the-immortal-pheonix/

Next up

https://dafuqis-that.com/2021/08/10/quarantine-diary-tenth-day-august-9th-2021-free-from-anticipations-the-absence-of-hope-is-not-despair-we-need-to-control-any-situation-to-a-certain-extent-getting-retested-unexpectedly-despai/