The pandemic had its first birthday this month – nobody threw it a party.
People are done of the restrictions, done of the rules, done of the whole damn show. Sure the vaccine is but minutes away for most of us but that is little comfort when looking forward to a future that will remain focused on the virus. I’m weary.
I think some people think the virus is as weary of us as we are of it – it isn’t. This germ would be happy to play hide and seek forever.
I’ve been very fortunate – I don’t personally know anyone who has contracted the virus and this is starting to make me think bending the rules a little further might be an okay thing to do. Truth told the reason I have been fairly sticky about the rules so far has had little to do with me catching the virus and everything to do with the fear of passing it along if I did.
Over the past months I’ve weighed the risks around me and tried to distinguish between the people taking more and those taking less care than me. I’m not talking about anti-maskers or germaphobes, I’m talking about people just like me who are doing their own version of weighing the risks vs consequences thing. It’s been an awkward dance – a marathon for someone who expected to do a sprint – and I’m tired of it.
It’s been hard trying not to be judgmental when weighing risks – my scale has unique to me parameters, I’m trying to determine who is a nut and who is a fool based on loose guidelines I’ve gleaned from the health authority. Of course I am the one holding my scale and my guidelines have been cherry-picked – and so have everyone else’s.
We are all trying to cope with the last leg of this marathon. We are all tired of it. I think I’d be fine if I was told we had to wear masks in public forever but I’m not fine with the disconnect anymore. I need a sense of that new normal everyone has been talking about and waiting for. I need to stop feeling like a weirdo holding a scale and trying not to judge what other people’s scales are measuring while they’re trying not to judge me.