Remember last year this time when we were all full of hope about the new vaccines? How it looked like we were going to see the end of Covid? Good times...
Followed by really good hopeful times in the Spring when we all got our vaccines and started DOING stuff again! It was great.
Then came Delta. And everything slammed shut again. Or at least they tried to slam it shut but once there is a foot in the door it doesn't slam so well. So we went back to masks and having to show proof of negative tests or vaccines and we thought well, maybe once this fades we will be back to normal again.
And then came Omicron and we are all just like...what the fuck?
Boosters and better masks and back to things being cancelled and...
It's not nearly as hopeful of an end of year as last year was.
The first time I wrote a blog about being in a pandemic I talked about how I wanted to capture what that felt like, how it was so surreal to actually know you are part of history while it's happening.
That was almost two years ago.
And you know what is surreal now? How this is just life. How adaptable we all are. Or well most of us are. Most of us have just figured out how to make it work. What masks are the best or most comfortable. Which places we feel comfortable going. Which ones we don't. Getting our vaccines and our boosters. Just dealing.
Or not. Omicron is making it's presence known in a different way. Super contagious. Vaccinated or not it looks like if you are around someone with it, you are getting it. They are saying it's as contagious as measles.
As I type this World Juniors is being cancelled. Team USA had to forfeit a game yesterday, Czechia had to forfeit a game today, I am guessing there were a lot more coming and that was that. No tournament.
College Football Bowl games have been cancelled, or other teams have stepped in. We are still hoping that the Michigan playoff game happens but maybe not. Positive cases are coming fast and furious again.
It's really frustrating this time around. Because it's the REAL realization that this could be a forever thing. I mean, I've said it since it started that it was probably something we were just dealing with like the flu, but even logically knowing that, it still sucks to think maybe we were past the worst of it only to watch it flare back again. And to know that there are still people out there refusing to do the basics so they are providing incubators for more variants. Which then makes it more likely that we will keep doing this. And they will say things like, "I haven't changed my life and you did and look, you wasted your time and nothing changed!" Never grasping that it's because they didn't change that we are all stuck in this cycle.
Frustrating.
And the whole "I refuse to live in fear" like that's a virtue bullshit. I'm not asking you to live in fear, I'm asking you to take this seriously. I don't think you are hindering your non-fear based life by wearing a seatbelt in a car, or a helmet on a motorcycle, or by reading the directions before you just start popping painkillers. "Living in fear" is a great insult to throw at someone I guess. It makes you feel better. It makes you feel like you are doing the right thing. When you're just being an asshole. Because your lack of safety concern for yourself actually endangers all of us. That whole variant thing with the virus. Give it an incubator and watch it mutate. Yay...
And, like it or not, there are things to be afraid of. We've lost family and friends to death. The biggest fear. We've had friends get horrible cases and a few that are suffering from long haul Covid now. And a friend's son got the horrible heart issue side-effect from the vaccine. And we aren't the only ones who have seen these things. There are real things to be worried about. Death, illness, side-effects from the cure. All of these things are real. And we need to be aware and figuring out how to deal with them.
And I get it, some people get the virus and wouldn't have even known they had it if they hadn't had to get tested, we have a few friends in that category as well. We've had friends get it and have a really mild set of symptoms as well. Just felt like a cold basically. Uncomfortable but nothing major. And we've had friends who got the vaccine who had zero side effects at all. Not even a day of feeling crappy. Just easy breezy.
And when all of those things happen the crowd that has never taken a precaution for the sake of someone else feels justified. They aren't sick. They don't know anyone who has died. They are pretty sure all of this is just made up.
It's frustrating.
Because it is scary.
And it isn't going away.
We need to figure out how to balance safety and normalcy.
We aren't there yet. And as Omicron rages through the world I don't know when we will get there.
It's still surreal. But the most surreal part of it is how it's just real. All the time. This is life.
Covid sucks, in all of it's mutations and variants.
Here's to another year down, and hopefully next year it will be a remember when, not a still going on issue.
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