I live alone, and for the most part, I like it that way. I’m one of those odd ducks who likes to be alone, most of the time. If I have a few friends I can confide in — I’m not completely inhuman — alone works just fine for me, most of the time.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, alone-ness has taken on a new quality. People are dying; I think about dying alone. Everyone who dies in a hospital of COVID-19 dies alone, because family/friends are kept from visiting so they don’t contract/spread the disease.

I’ve thought about this before. I’d rather die alone than die with people I don’t like around me. (And hey, I know this sounds morbid. But we all die. If not of COVID-19, of something.) Death itself is a lonely thing. No one can go with you when you die.

The stats roll by. I can’t get used to them. More dead and more dead and more dead. Would I get used to them if I didn’t live alone? If I had children to care for? Maybe. I’m not used to them. Every day it is a raw and growing wound. People are dying. People who are somebody’s mother, father, brother, sister, child. Friend. I am not used to it.

It slows me down emotionally. It slows down my brain. I feel defective because I can’t always summon a positive attitude. (I appreciate the people spreading positivity during hard times. That has never been my thing. I’m the person who brings up the uncomfortable stuff, with faltering clarity and articulacy.) I social distance. I clean surfaces. I wash my hands. I work. (From home.) I keep on track with my graduate degree in history. (Online.) But it’s hard to picture the future. And picturing the future is always what keeps me going. Even during hard times. Especially during hard times.

I can’t get used to the numbers. The deaths. I try to use snippets of spare time to write, and I can’t stop thinking about the deaths. The deaths that didn’t need to happen. The deaths that are largely the result of incompetence. And indifference. I am not okay with this. I am not used to this. I will never be used to this.