Things Past

I've always been proud of my ability to move forward. But Long COVID has me looking to my past instead of my future

I wrote about Proust once before. It was over a year ago, in February 2024, and I must have been midway through book 2 of Proust’s 7-volume epic In Search of Lost Time, also translated as Remembrance of Things Past. Now, I’m nearing the end of Volume 7, the last in the series. The final volumes have been a particular struggle to get through, as my health declined precipitously since the summer, leaving me homebound and mostly bedbound. I lost days and weeks to severe migraines, trying to relax beneath a silk eye mask beneath an icy cold cap direct from the freezer.

Eventually, I swallowed my pride and began listening to books on tape, something I discussed in this essay about learning to accept my need for mobility and accessibility aids. But by this time, my relationship with my gorgeous Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition novels was personal and emotional; I was fixated on finishing them the old-fashioned way. Slowly and steadily, I crawled through books five and six. I knew that, like me, Proust had been chronically ill, and I knew that, like me, he had been getting sicker as time went on.

I joked that reading the books while getting sicker, knowing that Proust was writing the semi-autobiographical books while getting sicker, made me feel like I was living in some warped Charlie Kaufman screenplay.