I might be losing it

Ok, guys, I think I’m losing it.
Don’t get me wrong: I love my house and I love the significant otter I’m in the house with, business is soaring and things are looking bright.
Except they’re not.
We have been in voluntary isolation and partial lock-down since February 21st. It feels like years.

Yesterday we celebrated what we call “Liberation Day”, marking the day our resistance launched an official call for insurrection against the fascists. There’s usually parades and celebrations: it’s a very important civil holiday. Our Mayor celebrated it by singing a popular partisan song from the balcony of Town Hall. He might be losing it too.

We now have a timeline for what they are calling Phase 2 and apparently on May 4th we will see a partial lifting of restrictions.
But deep down we know that this will only mean one thing: people who need to go to the office in order to work will be able to do so, but there will be no roaming around for other reasons, there will still be social distancing, maybe (just maybe) I’ll be able to stop scrambling on-line and spending a fortune for decent food, and maybe (just maybe) we’ll be able to reopen pubs and restaurants on May 18th, provided we sit 1 meter apart from each other. Maybe (just maybe) I’ll be able to get a massage after May 11th: I usually get a massage every week and I feel like I’m decomposing. Except we know we won’t. We feel we’ll realize, by May 10th, that cases are spiking. And we’ll go back inside. We all feel it, even if we joke and try to see May as a month of hope.

These above are hypotheses. And I don’t see how they’re possible: intensive care units are faring better, that’s true, but in the last week we’ve had between 2.200 and 3.300 new cases per day. It’s still a shitload of people and I can’t seem to be able to understand how the fuck are they getting sick by staying home. We’re still leading the board of the deceased, with a death toll of 26.644. Almost 300 people died today. And I know those are numbers similar to the regular flu, but the regular flu doesn’t have a spike that lasts two fucking months.

Still.

I feel the Government is being rather optimistic. I think we will go back to how we were in March, real quick, and then we will never recover.
It will be several months before I’ll be able to see my friends. And I miss them, I miss them so much.
It will probably be years before I can go back to my lifestyle of traveling, speaking in public, teaching in crowded rooms, and licking lamp-posts in foreign cities. And I know it sounds selfish, I know people are dying, I know I sound like a wuss complaining, but I really miss my friends. I miss my friends here in Milan and the ones in the nearby region. I miss my friends who live in the southern part of Italy and I miss my friends abroad. I miss the friends I haven’t met yet.
Yesterday the Government approved a plan to recover from the financial impact of the virus and the plan looks to going back to normal in 2032. Yes, I thought that was a mistake too. It wasn’t. Two-thousand-fucking-thirty-two. I hope it won’t be the same with human contacts. Because I’m not sure I can take it.