Tuesday 19 January 2021

Oh...

I have a January birthday.

I don't bring this up to elicit happy birthday wishes, I bring this up because I realized this weekend that my last birthday was pandemic free and that this birthday will be my first in.... lockdown or, whatever?

I suppose I was feeling a little bit sorry for myself because I had to ask Jason if I could see him on my birthday and then I realized that I couldn't technically see anyone else and even though I knew this when I asked him it still got to me a bit.  (To clarify, in our province, if you live alone, you are allowed to go see "one or two" people while people who live with others can only see their household right now so Jason is my "bubble person" that I am seeing in this stage of things.)

I know we kind of already did this over Christmas and during that time I did have a couple of drive by visits but I still had a moment or two of sadness and I had one this weekend over this birthday being ...weird and a little lonely.  And I realized that January/February and a few March birthdays will be the only folks who didn't go through a weird birthday in 2020 so I guess I'm just catching up to everyone?

In other news... I did read that we basically didn't have a flu season this "flu season".  More flu shots, mask wearing, hand washing and physical distancing seem to have made a significant difference and in the article I read they said we'd had like... six cases?  rather than the usual thousand and something.  That's significant.

I don't know if mask wearing when symptomatic (cold/flu type symptoms) is something that will continue with folks once this pandemic is declared over.  I know most of us don't like wearing that mask, but I also know other countries where it has been a common thing for a long while and so I guess I will try to hope that some things change after this?  It would be nice if a more comprehensive "stay home from work when sick" leave sort of thing was supported and the hand washing, well that would be great to keep up.  The social distancing I'd imagine is one thing we're all looking forward to removing but what about the idea of cancelling activities and events for yourself when you feel under the weather?  Will folks still do that?

I don't know if people have changed their views on how colds/flus spread and if they'll keep that in mind going forward or if once this whole thing is as gone as it possibly can be, if they'll just try to "go back" to a normal they remember.  I guess we'll see, but I think the lack of "flu season" is really good news, and kind of what I had hoped and expected to hear.

4 comments:

Elliott said...

Happy Birthday! I had my first pandemic birthday last weekend. None of the family could come home other than our oldest who has been here since before Christmas.

I hope you have as good as possible a Birthday during the pandemic.

Victoria said...

Happy Birthday!!!! *hugs*

Jason Langlois said...

Have the happiest birthday you can manage. Glad you're around.

Victoria said...

Thanks. Other Jason asked what I'd like for dinner and I said I wasn't sure yet but that I did want a mini Thrifty's cake... now the big decision... chocolate or vanilla cake! (Gluten be darned!)