Pandemic Blues

I don't look at it in terms of, "how much normality can be preserved?" but more, "how much normality am I able to sacrifice?" And I don't understand why we're so attached to celebrating a holiday in a certain way, that we can't give that up, even just for one year out of our whole lives. You could probably go out trick-or-treating, wearing a mask, and socially distancing, and be okay. That's just not the issue, the way I look at it. The issue is, is this something we have to do? And if we do it, are we taking risks that we don't need to be taking? Masks and social distancing are measures we use to reduce risk - when we otherwise have to go out and be around other people. Limiting social interactions and staying at home are other things we can do. Just because we have masks, and stay 6 ft apart (which is really not necessarily far enough in all cases), doesn't mean that everything else can just go back to normal. Those are measures you use when you have to go out - like to work, or to buy groceries. And I'm not saying you can't get fresh air, either. But you go to a park that's not crowded, on a normal day. The very idea of an activity that involves massive portions of the population all going out within the same hour on the same day and crossing paths and knocking on doors, in the midst of a pandemic? This is exactly the sort of thing we need to be sacrificing, for the common good - like conventions and concerts and spectator sports.

COVID-19 isn't a terrorist. It's not a sentient human being. You can't fight it by going out and living a normal life and showing it that you're not afraid. That just reeks of entitlement to me. I've lived my entire life with debilitating social anxiety. I know what it's like to miss out. I feel like I've missed out on most of life - hanging out with friends growing up, going to parties, girlfriends, and then getting a normal job, raising kids. I've been extremely lucky to have a little bit of all of that (well, most of it), and I've learned to (mostly) be content with that, because it's as much as I can expect from life. But I've spent too many days of my life depressed at home, alone, thinking about everything I'm missing out on. And now we're in a pandemic, where that skill of being able to stay home, isolated, and miss out on things, is exactly what people need, what society needs. And yet I look around and see all these people who have always gotten everything they wanted out of life, spoiled and entitled and unable to make the sort of sacrifices I've had to make all my life, for just maybe one year - hell, they couldn't even do it much longer than a month!

I suppose I should be sympathetic, because it's not an easy thing to do, and I have an unfair advantage for once. But it seems like people aren't even trying. And I feel alone, not in the way we're supposed to right now, but in the way that it's almost like I'm the only one having to endure this pandemic right now, while everybody else around me just goes on with their lives, humoring me because I'm a germophobe or something. I don't want people to be miserable, and to miss out on everything. I just want the feeling of solidarity, like I'm not in this alone, and that I'm not being crazy because I'm going too far. From the beginning, I've honored the idea that in a pandemic, if you're doing all the right things, in hindsight it'll look like you're doing too much, but if you're not, it'll only ever be not enough. And I look at the state of the world right now, and particularly the country, and I can't believe people think things are okay the way we're going. It hasn't gotten better since March. It's just kept getting steadily worse. Once there's a vaccine, and numbers actually start going down, then I won't resent people insisting on being able to crowd into bars to drink on the weekends (because they've earned it). But we're not quite there yet, and I want to see us working together to weather this storm until we are, not resenting every little sacrifice we're asked to make, and then turning it into some political squabble or conspiracy theory.