Choices

I was thinking about things, specifically Covid-19 related things and I thought to myself that maybe in the New Year I'll try to do more.  That maybe I'll sort of open up to trying to be less "afraid" (cautious really) of maybe going to the gym, or accepting an offer to go out for dinner (gah!) or I don't know, a social gathering or two, or maybe not stress every time Jason has a couple of friends over?  Maybe I'd try to let some of my caution go....?

I suppose it's looking over an entire year of living with it.  Again.  

Like, 2020, sure we had it we just sort of weren't talking about it until early Spring.  Or we were talking about it but that's when lockdown happened and things got weird.  And no one talked about collective trauma at the time but it happened too.  And I think some hoped that 2021 would be the end of it, and vaccines happened, but other things and personal choices happened too and then variations and mutations and more things I don't want to get into (sigh... humans...) and now we just lived an entire, full, complete year, end to end with an ongoing global pandemic.  Fuck.

A(nother) year of masks (and vaccines) and signs on businesses and news stories and daily case numbers and another year of worry worry worry and caution and did I wash my hands enough and one time last week I somehow, SOMEHOW forgot my mask when I left my apartment and when I got to my appointment I was like HOLY SHIT I LEFT THE HOUSE WITHOUT A MASK WHAT???? and had to use my extra that I thankfully put in my purse last year but sometimes when I'm at Jasons after a day at work it feels weird to be out of my apartment without a mask.  What a fantastically odd thing to think about.

I think there will always be people wearing masks now.  I think some folk will never give up wearing one in public and who cares about their reasons for that choices.  I just think it's never going to go fully away, even if we ever lose the mandate.  (Will we ever lose the mandate?????)

But anyway, back to my thinking.  I thought that maybe in the new year I'll start to be a little less cautious... I mean I already met someone for lunch at an outdoor restaurant a month or so ago and I didn't (apparently) get sick so maybe I can be a little less afraid?  Again, people are doing things - going to shows, movies, dinner (and other non-vaccine passport "protected" things that I'm not personally interested in), etc.

So I have this thought, and then I go and read the news and some social media and all of a sudden I'm back to thinking it's a stupid idea to be anywhere near any other humans and I should never do anything ever again because of this variant and that issue and sigh.  I'm tired of so much worry and effort to stay well, I just am.  But I hate the alternative.  I didn't even like getting sick before this damn pandemic.

Sigh.