Andie and I are suffering from what appears to be colloquially known as “long COVID”. That is to say, having had COVID earlier in the year, neither of our bodies have quite recovered from the experience, leaving us feeling way shittier than we really should be when we’re otherwise “healthy”. I use the term loosely because neither of us are exactly “healthy”, but we’re not actively afflicted with any illnesses, so far as I’m concerned.

According to the NHS, the symptoms of long COVID include being achey, tired all the time and generally feeling crap. I can confirm that all of those things are present and correct in my own body; the whole experience has left me feeling about thirty years older than I actually am, and I’m rather keen to leave this feeling behind now. I don’t feel I should be feeling intense pain when sitting down for too long, or standing up for too long, or just generally existing at my age, but, well, I’m sure this is at least partly my own fault.

We’re not doing nothing about it, mind; both of us are following WeightWatchers in an attempt to shed some excess baggage, because that will probably help the symptoms we’re suffering. And while it’s slow going — at least partly because with both OG COVID and long COVID we’ve found ourselves struggling with motivation, because the last thing you want to do when you feel like crap is diet — things are going relatively well. We just need to try and stick with it over the long term. Which is easier said than done, of course, particularly when you’re feeling pretty exhausted and all you want to do is eat in the vain attempt that you might regain some energy and vigour.

After the last couple of years — and after the whole news over the “cost of living crisis” we’re presently enduring here in the UK — it sort of feels like we need to resign ourselves to life being shitty in general, so what, really, is a bit of physical suffering to go along with feelings of existential crisis, a sense that you don’t really belong in the modern world and a quite genuine feeling that the world is actually in the process of ending right now?

There’s a cheery thought for your Thursday afternoon, now, isn’t it? So I think I’m off to go and live my life in denial with either some Final Fantasy XIV, Tower of Fantasy or both. At least in those worlds I can do something about the things that are Wrong, both with myself and with the world at large!