When This Is Over

When this is over, I will get off my damn phone already. No more true-crime food blogs, Hawaii vacation Instagram pictures, or endless scrolling through Mars-landing conspiracy sites. I will use my phone only for absolutely necessary tasks: calls, texts, e-mail, maps/directions, the weather, my alarm clock, music and podcasts, taking pictures, posting pictures, jotting down stray thoughts, seeing what I look like with different filters, TikTok, Vuba Vuba, Minesweeper, and the app that reminds me to drink water.

When this is over, I am so giving back to my community. I’ll donate time, money, and blood. Well, not my blood, because I have really skinny veins. The nurse at my doctor’s office told me they were the smallest veins she had ever seen, and that I needed to drink more water, which is why I downloaded that app, although so far it hasn’t affected my vein girth. But I’ll give money! After I pay off my credit card. And, come to think of it, I probably shouldn’t be giving away money until I’m totally financially independent because I do still occasionally charge my Spotify to my mom’s account. I guess I could ask my mom to give money. Or blood—my mom has huge veins.

When this is over, I’m going to get my ass to the concerts, plays, and other live entertainment the city has to offer. As long as I can afford the tickets, because, again, my mother still subsidizes many of my expenses. And as long as the crowds aren’t too crowded, because you never know if the person next to you is sick. Or a terrorist. Or a sick terrorist. And if I’m being honest, my favorite kind of entertainment is movies, and all the good movies end up on Netflix eventually, so I could stay home and count that as a cultural experience that is also very safe. Should I really be dropping my mom’s cash on tickets to the ballet—which is probably full of diseased suicide bombers—before I’ve seen “Okja”? Also, books.

When this is over and I can see my friends again, I’ll never say no to a night out. I’ll go to bars and clubs and karaoke rooms and roof parties and raves. I’ll down every shot that’s offered to me, to the point that my friends are, like, “This is worrisome behavior—are you O.K.?” And I’m, like, “I’m fine! You’re only young once!” And my friends are, like, “Well . . . have fun, but we’re going home, it’s five in the morning.” And then I make best friends with a stranger in line for the restroom, but it turns out she’s a scam artist who persuades me to pay for her stay in Serena Hotel, but it all works out because I’m too drunk to remember my bank-account information anyway.

When this is over, I won’t be so picky about women. I’ll say yes to a date with any girl who is shorter and younger than me, but over twenty, with a good job, who can dance and speaks a language besides Kinyarwanda and hates cats and feels exactly the same way about KinyaTrap as I do and smells nice and has good table manners and tips well and doesn't own any of those fluffy teddy bears because I think they're childish and tacky and I'm not sure why adults buy them. Actually, she can have up to three of those teddies but they can't be too prominently displayed in her home, and they definitely can't be in the bedroom—those lovely puppy eyes would get all the attention I deserve.

I just realized that if I’m going to meet these girls I will need to be on dating apps, so that’s another thing I need my phone for. Plenty of fish in the sea, but you can’t catch a fish without a rod, can you? (The rod is my phone.)

When this is over, it shall be as if I have been born anew, regenerated, replenished, humbled, and galvanized, ready to embrace the world in its fullness and live life with a verve such as I have never had before.

When this is over, I will not go back to the gym.