
It’s a weird debate to me, but we’re in a world where truth has no definition and facts don’t need evidence, so I guess it’s understandable. I mean, even those people who call the virus a hoax admit that people can die a pretty shitty death if they get it, but I still feel pretty bad about the possibility of taking a year off from the holidays.
Let’s do a quick “tale of the tape,” shall we. Every medical expert (yes, expert, and I respect them as such) tells us that if we have pre-existing conditions, the virus will probably affect us worse than a marathon runner with godlike vitals. They say that you should especially be worried if you have one of eleven different ailments, and I have two and a half of them.
First, I have had asthma since I was a child. For 35+ years, I’ve had a Ventolin inhaler or a nebulizer near me at all times, just in case. Second, I finally got our family’s most ill-desired heirloom – hypertrophic cardiomyopathy – about 6 years ago. And lastly, I could stand to lose 25 pounds (thank you, replacement addictions,) so I am on the “overweight enough to have COVID negatively affect you” scale.
So I got heart problems, lung problems, and sugar problems, and yet somehow I still manage to be a cheery son of a bitch. But even without the COVID, that cheery son of a bitch could still pass out walking up a flight of stairs, wake up needing a shot of Ventolin, and shake it off with a glass of sweet tea and some cookie dough. And yes, I’m well aware that I have some control over the weight thing. The other two, not so much.
It feels like, however, that society expects people like me to feel guilty for those things we cannot control, and it makes us bitter towards the ones so callous about a damn mask that they’d rather preserve their supposedly fleeting freedom in rebellion than to take a chance that maybe they actually could save a life by wearing it and respecting a virus that clearly did not leave on Election Day, 2020.
So if you’re in that boat – and especially if you are one of the afflicted like me – this blog post is for you. And it’s also for me, to make me feel better about my limited participation in this year’s holiday festivities.
When You See What Others Cannot
Do you notice when you’re in the grocery store and you’re “drafting” behind the person in front of you as you both walk down an aisle? Do you realize that the air they breathe is following them like the contrails of a jet, thus meaning that you are walking in the exact air they breathe and therefore causing you to stay back or suddenly stop and pretend to need gefilte fish?
I do.
Do you look at pictures on social media of family and friends and start piecing together the possibility that they might have been with or near people who you might soon be with or near? Do you see the pics of group shots with no masks and know that if one of them has the virus, they all have a really good shot of contracting it because if they got that close for a picture, chances are they hung around with people that close for several hours, too?
I do.
Do you watch your child go off to school or preschool and hope like hell they keep their mask on and wash their hands and don’t get too close to somebody coughing or sneezing? Do you attempt to contact trace the parents of your child’s friends on that rare occasion that your four-year-old gets to have a playdate?
I do.
It’s almost impossible not to notice these things when you respect the virus because of pre-existing conditions. And sure, I’ve gotten virus fatigue and noticed myself slacking, but these past couple of weeks as the numbers have skyrocketed, I’ve noticed how much my mind works overtime thinking through all the scenarios to make sure I keep myself safe.
And for the most part, I don’t judge other people for living the life they want to live. I honestly have no interest in telling people they are being careless or inconsiderate when they go to a dinner party at a friend’s house. More than likely, if they get infected, they’ll cough twice and head right back out into the world. I doubt I would be that lucky.
And yeah, I’ve sat back and watched the hypocrisy and carelessness of the rallies and the protests (with emphasis on the bipartisan hypocrisy) and I’ve wondered why our small businesses are being legislated to die when the big box stores are yielding record profits. I notice a country where every single person has already made up their mind about how they will live in this pandemic world, and I am not going to change their mind. So I don’t even try. I find wasting my time rather pointless these days.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t notice EVERYTHING about how this country and her people are reacting to the first major pandemic in our lifetimes. It’s been pretty ugly. And in the face of that, I’ve learned a lot about what I see. And I see a lot of things that other people simply cannot see. Or refuse to see.
The “Don’t Stop Living” Argument
In their reaction to the constraints being placed upon them these past eight months, many people have thrown out the argument that you’re as good as dead if you let this virus control you. If you stop living, they say, you might as well just stop actually living.
Well, you do you, my quote-wielding friend.
The thing about this “quote” is that it’s a microcosm of our country today. It’s overly generalized to the point that it becomes almost laughable in its application. It assumes so many things that it falls really, really flat with me.
It assumes that everyone must “live” the way the speaker of the quote defines life.
It assumes that those people to whom they are addressing lived somewhat of a glamorous life before the virus interrupted it.
It assumes that those of us who “stopped living” couldn’t benefit from a life that slowed down a little.
It assumes that people were truly happy before the virus, when if you actually understand the human condition and the many struggles therein, true happiness is actually pretty rare for most people. You can’t really “live” if you aren’t really enjoying the life, can you?
This mantra also assumes that respecting the virus is something we are doing against our will. Do I WANT to live in a world where a pandemic is ravaging everything in our lives? Of course not. But am I being realistic about its existence and respecting it because it’s the most prudent thing for me to do? Absolutely. I’m not reacting that way against my will.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a positive, uplifting mantra. I hope it inspires happiness and contentment in people who decide to not let a virus make them “stop living.” I hope they find new ways to “live” within the safe guidelines we’ve been given by our medical experts, but if not, it clearly won’t be me who stops them.
But I think it’s important to understand that to some of us, our choice to live to see the other side of this pandemic gives us a happiness and contentment that you might not understand. And you aren’t necessarily SUPPOSED to understand me, by the way. You’re supposed to work to understand yourself. And yes, it is MUCH easier said than done. So you do you and I’ll do me.
And in a few months, those of us lucky enough to survive this virus will ALL start living again. And we still won’t need anybody’s approval to do so in our own unique way.
So About Those Holidays
I think it’s become an easy decision for me. I have no interest in telling anybody else how to live. If they want to hang out with people on the weekends and live as if I’m being stupid and go around the grocery store with no mask on breathing on cereal boxes because they have no ability to see how their carelessness actually could cost somebody else their life, I’m to a point where I just say, “You be you, my dude.”
I also have contact traced so many people that cross my path that I’m done with that, too. I am not going to sit down and have the following conversation with my wife ever again:
Wife, when, for example, planning a potential play date: “His dad works in a sawmill and wears a mask from 9:00 until 11:30, then he goes to lunch in a break room with poor ventilation, and he wears a mask only over his mouth during the afternoon hours before carpooling with two guys who have second jobs as waiters, but they have to wear masks at the restaurant, except in the kitchen.”
Me: “And you said the mom scrapbooks with a nurse and goes skeet shooting with three ladies who do a yoga class at a gym that stays 78 degrees year round? Do these women have socially active children? Tell me ALL about them.”
Yes, that was overly-dramatized for effect, but when we’re done with the parents, we inevitably go down the contact tracing path to talk about everybody they come in contact with. And it’s EXHAUSTING. I’m so sick of it. We’re ALL four degrees of separation from somebody who’s dead from this virus. It’s really gotten pretty stupid trying to figure out who’s safe and who isn’t because NOBODY is 100% safe. A perfectly healthy person could test negative one day and become a super spreader the next and they’d never show a single symptom.
In other words, it is absolutely stupid to tell me that any single person I come in contact with is completely healthy. You don’t know that, I don’t know that, the often incorrect tests don’t know that, and the perfectly healthy super spreader who hasn’t shown a single symptom doesn’t know that. So go ahead and tell me that everybody at a holiday get-together is perfectly healthy. I already know you can’t prove that, so I’ll just smile and do whatever makes me feel the safest.
So for the holidays this year, I’m going to do two things. I’m going to look out for myself, and I’m going to LIMIT my exposure to others to the best of my ability. If I know I am going to a holiday gathering where ten people have self-quarantined for two weeks and two people hung out with another side of the family a couple of days ago and there were fifteen people in the den opening presents with no masks on, I don’t really care if the ten people who self-quarantined get pissed off at me or not.
The two people who were exposed to fifteen people with no masks on will keep me home. And I’m okay with that. No hard feelings on my end whatsoever.
I am going to LIMIT my exposure to people. I’m never 100% safe because that’s impossible, but if I can be 80% safe as opposed to 60% safe for one winter, it will probably mean that this is not the winter where I “stop living.”
So you do you. And I’m going to do me. I’ll probably just see you next year. And if you’re not okay with that, I am.
And that’s okay with me.
And PS, if somebody in your family doesn’t feel comfortable doing holiday get-togethers this year, tell them you love them, you respect their decision, and don’t say a single negative word behind their back about them not being there. Because it’s not your job to live their life.
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