I got a COVID infection a while ago that permanently disabled me pretty bad. Bedridden, unable to move much, etc.
The thing that really helped me was relaxing and listening to music. That’s what I spent my days doing as I couldn’t do much else. I became a real music nerd and just loved the bliss of hearing music.
A little later (two years). I got another COVID infection — I was taking very strong precautions, and couldn’t see anyone. It turns out I got it from my doctor. Anyways, this infection caused some brain damage which has caused me to mostly loose the ability to hear. And now I’m still mostly motionless alone in bed, but I haven’t even got the comfort of sound or music. Just a mostly silent (tinnitus filled) world.
I’m so scared of getting covid again. But mostly I miss the world and my old life. Being stuck alone in bed with only the internet for company sucks. People tend to be arseholes online. I can’t help but feel I got “natural selectioned”. Me and my wife were planning on having kids soon. Now I barely see her and I’m going to slowly die in a nursing home. There are specific genetic vulnerabilities to illnesses, and natural selection works with them (see what Europeans coming to America did). And I got fucked here. COVID was my end.
I love music, I’m so sorry to hear about all of your struggles, it breaks my heart to read that you lost this one thing that makes things a bit less horrible.
Are you able to enjoy other art forms? Visual art and poetry are both wonderful. Visual art is tricky because reproductions can often flatten works of art in ways that would make them even more mesmerizing in person, but I still get a lot out of viewing reproductions.
I’m not as tuned into poetry but there is much poetry that I love and are worth spending time on. And like a song, a poem or a piece of art can be experienced over and over and experienced in new ways. There is a definite magic to music and the way it makes us feel things through sound.