The wristwatch collection at the Tourneau showroom on 57th Street fills four stories. I was on the ground floor, at the Rolex booth, where a salesman fit a black-faced Datejust around my wrist.

“The Datejust is the classic Rolex,” he said. “The foundation.”

The salesman and I huddled over a glass display case as I stared out into the silenced buzz of Midtown, deliberating. It was the fourth time I had tried on the watch, and I had little doubt that it was indeed a new foundation I sought.

For two years I have been treading water in a sea of obscure neurological illness, an affliction that has felt like a serious and unrelenting flu, keeping me bedridden unless I make a major effort to get out. My eyesight is warped and psychedelic, my nausea unyielding, and a throbbing pressure monopolizes my crown and forehead. No doctor has been able to tell me definitively what it is. I am 32.

Dunia is most of what remains from my old life. Our cozy bed has been where my disability disappears behind nuzzles and entwined legs, a connection strong enough to convince me that there is still a world outside of my discomfort and twisted vision.