From the Fountain of Youth to Dehydrated: A Quarantine Memoir by Britt Carter
Unless you have been living under a rock or in New Zealand, you are probably still reeling from the effects and/or after effects of a quarantine that is one of the biggest events of our lifetime thus far. Me too. Two months, eight weeks, 56 days. And the beat goes on. Also, I had to do some fun math to arrive at the 56 day number. You’re welcome.
I don’t want to propose that my quarantine was any more difficult than yours. It more than likely was pretty much the same as yours. At one point I was eating a pint (possibly two) of ice cream a day and binging Designing Women and Tiger King. Lots of naps and baking cakes. I also renewed the love affair with my youth.
Britt and Jr. High Bestie Andrea, circa 1999
I even bought a bicycle that I rode.
Once.
Anyways, I am 37. As I write this, 38 is looming in 27 days. Somehow, I looked up and I was staring point blank at 40. Just sitting there like some Cheshire Cat, grinning about the rollover of a decade. Sure, it’s two years away, but it’s still there. Mocking me.
From our wedding in March
To be honest, my 30s have been QUITE a decade. I was married, then divorced, then had a heart attack, changed careers, found the love of my life, got married again, and somehow ended up in the place that I have dreamed of being for the majority of my life. I have all the trappings of a successful 30 something — beautiful husband, fabulous dogs, great job, house, cars, all of the things that you dream of when you are 18. My life is pretty wonderful.
Yet, quarantine left a lot of time for self reflection. What I realized is that I had left the positivity, the imagination, and the playfulness of my late teens at the University of Arkansas, and I needed to do something to recapture those emotions.
See.....I was even cuter then. It’s the hope. The possibility.
I also was challenged to do it during one of the most difficult times in world history. While our political leaders were sitting on their hands, hoping the virus would go away, I sprung to action. I broke out Excel. YIKES. I had those conversations with my husband about how long we could live with zero income and also the struggle he would have not going to NorthPark Mall twice a week. This was a pandemic.
Once that was sorted, I gave myself permission to play.
Typically, I am a pretty serious person. I look at each day sort of like a puzzle, and I start working mentally backwards to solve the issues of the day. Sometimes that works, sometimes I have to have a margarita. Same, same. So when the government told me to shelter in place, I took a mental field trip back to 2002. Back to the University of Arkansas. Back to the time when I was probably the most carefree.
This is a chronicled version of those events. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.
THE SIMS 4
Years ago, I somehow stumbled onto a computer based game called The Sims. For those of you who don’t know, it’s basically an electronic game of Life where you create Avatars (Sims), build a house, furnish it, and then go about controlling their lives. I am sure there are strategies and ways about playing the game that are entertaining and challenging, but I could never be bothered with that. “Sims 4 cheats” is literally one of the top searches on my Safari. Judge me if you will.
I also really never got into playing that actual game, except to make my Sim, Antonio Carragio, father 44 children. The task of making them cook, go to work, and interact with people never appealed to me. According to my husband, building moderately priced spec homes was my jam.
So that is what I did for nearly eight weeks and even still today. I wake up, take the dogs out, make a Starbucks run, and then get settled in my cozy corner with my laptop and build all day. It’s fired up my creativity from different places, long since laid aside for the more important task of adulting. Stupid adulting. The irony was that a pandemic that had relegated me to my own home was somehow allowing me the most freedom.*
*Side note — I read a Wall Street Journal article that described so called “Covid Guilt” wherein people feel a terrible sense of guilt because, while so many others are so horribly affected, they are coping fairly well. That took some wrestling with, psychologically. Digress back to our previously scheduled programming.
I present to you: Antonio Estate
Day after day, I would build, remodel, refurnish, and generally play some kind of hybrid between Frank Lloyd Wright and Kelly Wearstler. There was something about endless, limitless possibility that made me feel reconnected, less jaded, more hopeful. That’s probably my psyche giving too much power to something seemingly insignificant. But then again, I had to ask, “Why not?” If something as seemingly insignificant as ONE uncovered sneeze can cripple an entire global economy, then why can’t The Sims renew the connection to my imagination. I remember being a kid, one with a powerful sense of imagination. Where did that go?
After extensive Sims-ing came the Youtube tutorials. Here’s the skinny — you can pick literally anything, search for it on YouTube, and there will likely be a tutorial. Want to know how to weave a basket underwater? Get after it.
The Sims was no exception. People across the globe are dedicated to building in The Sims. And they do it really well, too. So I dabbled…and then I became addicted. There is something about a stop motion video of an entire house being built, furnished, and landscaped that is oddly satisfying. There are a couple of “influencers” that I watch almost religiously — Mr. Olkan and the love to hate, lilsimsie.
Let me break this down. I am already a 38 year old man, who is “gaming.” SIDE EYE EMJOI 😒 But now, I am watching AND listening to (with embarrassed enjoyment) a 20 year old woman yammer on about the MOST ridiculous stories while building Sims houses on YouTube. Listen, the stories are ridiculous. She is ridiculous. She is 20. We have nothing in common. She has conversations about her cat, her boyfriend that lives in the UK. SIDE EYE EMOJI 😒 AGAIN 😒 And perhaps her most insane story involves her returning to her JR. HIGH (THERE IS NO EMOJI FOR HOW DUMB THIS IS) and taking a picture next to the cafeteria table where girls were incredibly mean to her and how therapeutic that was.
I will leave some time for that bit of personal information to digest...
When I finally digested it, I realized that the aforementioned emojis came from being a jaded adult. Kids don’t side eye emoji themselves. Well, they do. But I guarantee you, statically, 30-40 somethings do it more. Tell me I’m wrong.
So there I was, in my cozy corner, playing a simulation house building game while listening to a woman half my age talk about her junior high school trauma.
And. It. Resonated. Forever forming my love/hate of lilsimsie.
Because who WASN’T made fun of in jr. high? It’s a hideous part of life. Everyone is growing and changing, diverting attention to the kid with acne, the suspected gay kid, or the oddball.
I knew lilsimsie in jr. high.
The sort of quiet, meek, studious girl that has braces and glasses and attracts ZERO attention, other than from the Regina Georges of the world. If you don’t know that reference, get it together and watch Mean Girls.
There is probably some of lilsimsie in me.
Except I grew hard and built walls and instead of leaning into the fountain of possibility, I built a wall around it. In doing so, I unknowingly dehydrated my imagination. I labeled this as being realistic. Adult. Limitless couldn’t be possible because there were rules, reality. Where she got it right and I got it wrong is that there really are no rules as to what we can do in life. It’s about what we think we are capable of doing. It’s that little sliver of hope that lives somewhere in the back of our minds that tells us we are good enough to apply for the dream job. That we can bring a child into the world. That we can dream of something big and still achieve it. No matter how hard we may try to ignore it, it’s still there.
There is probably some of lilsimsie in all of us.
So here is what I learned from lilsimsie: If you enjoy doing something, you should lean into that thing. If you want to achieve something, make of a list of the ways that it is possible instead of why it’s not. Be unapologetically you. Play The Sims. Wear your Von Dutch trucker cap. Carry a purse if you are man.
If anyone at Goyard sees this, feel free to contact me for sponsorship opportunities.
This is something that requires guidance and as a purse-carrying man, you should contact an expert. But do it. It’s so freeing and also incredibly convenient.
Express the parts of you, that make you, really you. Don’t dress in all black and smother yourself, unless that is your gig, in which case rock the shit out of it.
Be FIERCE
After this revelation, during a phone call with Natalie of this blog, I was informed that Abercrombie & Fitch (it’s still around, but the moose is gone) makes a candle of the scent ‘Fierce’ that was the fragrance of a generation.
Shortly after receiving this news, I dressed myself in a dark blue Canadian tuxedo, Luchesse boots, Tom Ford tortoiseshell sunglasses (never removed), Louis Vuitton Covid mask, and carried my big orange Birkin bag into Abercrombie & Fitch — after a 20 year absence — and bought that candle. I describe this in detail not to ‘flex’ but to tell you that 20 years ago, I NEVER would have been caught dead in any of that. It would draw far too much attention. I have apparently grown, but I’m still clearly a work in progress. All of that drag and designer is probably my life armor, telling complete strangers who see me shopping that I am far too serious for this store. Those possibilities are for my therapist to work out.
In case you didn’t think I was serious about the mask.
The staff is familiar. Attractive, well built, aloof to the point of rudeness. The smell of Fierce is lighter, the music less obtrusive, and the clothes are far less full of rips and tears. It is still oddly dark. That, or my eyes are going.
Luckily, a young man saw me looking VERY out of place and asked to help. My response was to pretend the candle may not exist and that, if it did, it was actually a gift for someone else. I secured the candle, paid with Apple Pay, declined a bag and receipt, and tucked that tiny bundle of joy in my purse to create virtually no footprint of my visit. Blonde Sean will never remember me.
Obviously, I still have work to do on living unapologetically, but it allowed me to dip my toe into the water. My husband lives that way, and so do a lot of my closest circle. I am surrounded by positive influence, so it’s simply a matter of grasping it for myself. Also, in case you were wondering, I went with the single wick because while I love Fierce, a three wick candle is a serious commitment.
That candle is burning as I write this, bringing back feelings of carefree, stress-free living and reminding me that walls built to prevent scars also keep you from holding onto that fountain of positivity that springs forward from your own imagination.
FIERCE
Apparently, my fountain of youth lies in an Abercrombie candle, a Birkin bag, and The Sims 4 — all for their own, very special reasons.
Stay safe.
PS. I officially had to change my default font size. I am now a 14. SIDE EYE EMOJI 😒
Britt Carter
Colorist, Candle Aficionado, Australian Shepherd Collector
