How to Nurse a Quarantine Hangover

Originally published in March 2020

I woke up today feeling like hell.

My eyes are dry, my head heavy. My body misses sweat and the wind from passing subway trains.

It’s no wonder, really, that it would manifest physically. After all, I’ve spent the last ten days oscillating between emotions and contemplating my mortality and doom-scrolling Twitter and cannonballing into an Olympic-sized pool of anxiety.

But I’ve also spent a lot of time doing living room yoga and cooking gourmet meals and going on indulgently long walks and cry-laughing with my friends from unflattering angles on Facetime. And when I think of those moments, like an IV drip, gratitude lifts me from my aches and pains.

Things are pretty fucked right now, and there are plenty of reasons to be stressed and angry and sad. But there’s a lot to be grateful for, too. If you’re like me and are lucky enough to be healthy, employed, and in a comfortable home, you’ve got a lot of blessings to count.

With that in mind, I’m vowing to a daily gratitude check; a commitment to pause for a moment each day and take inventory of the good shit— Pedialyte for the soul. I hope you’ll consider doing the same. You can do it quietly in your head or out loud to your dog or at the dinner table with your family. Just please don’t go live on Instagram— we saw how that panned out for Vanessa Hudgens.

Happy hydrating.