Theodore Roosevelt:
If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.
I just spent a couple of days in bed.
I was sick. I had a sore throat, I felt weak, my chest hurt a bit. I didn’t feel too poorly, but I sequestered myself away from the family. My symptoms were minimal but the guilty voice in my head was sure I had COVID.
Within a month, I had flown to two other states, slept at hotels, attended a Broadway show, visited a museum, ate at restaurants, hosted a neighbor family for dinner, hosted a full-blown children’s party, driven out of town, stayed with friends. Some of it was outdoors, some of it was masked, some with people I knew were vaccinated. I like to think that I did what I could to keep safe.
I hid in my bed in absolute misery.
Had I gotten COVID somewhere along the line? Had I passed it on? Would my kids get it? Would I shut down everyone’s lives for weeks? Would my friends get it, including those with less than perfect health?
Would someone die because of me?
Spoiler - I don’t have COVID. I took both a rapid and a PCR test, both came back negative. By the second day, I was feeling pretty sure I would be fine but didn’t want to give anyone my cold, lest we run the gamut of testing and lockdown with everyone in turn.
Still, I had rolled the dice. As I lay in bed, still unsure if I was a vector of plague, I asked myself if I felt guilty. Would I have done anything differently?
The Best of Intentions
How did I get anywhere near all this activity? Most of you know me as a strict follower of the data. I hated anyone that questioned the rules of pandemic engagement. I stayed home, ordered in. When things got really bad I decided to no longer endanger delivery drivers so I picked up everything curbside. No playdates, no hangouts. For a long time, I even got antsy in outside gatherings.
But by Hot Delta Summer, I was so, so tired of the rules. We had scheduled some things for the fall many months ahead, thinking that a year and a half past the beginning of this thing was a reasonable amount of time to expect relief. I knew about the variant but I thought being vaccinated, being among vaccinated people, and being cautious would be enough. I thought I would be good about masking and distancing during events, and testing in between.
I may not have gotten COVID, but I still underestimated my actions while out in the world, while feeling well within my rights to enjoy myself.
When the vaccines rolled out in the spring and everyone I knew got one as soon as they possibly could, the conversation shifted. Whispers passed around revealing locations with unused doses, amidst quiet discussions on where the scruples were drawn. Others crossed state lines to find red counties with a disinterested populace to catch those extras. We were giddy with our grasp of the bureaucracy, the unprecedented medical breakthrough of it all, and the glimpse of a friggin’ light at the end of the friggin’ tunnel.
Past the second dose and the 2 week efficacy period, a glow set in, filling our souls with hope, with promises, with a Joie de Vive we thought we’d never get back again. We looked around and said, shit, we made it, we’re alive! Alive, and with a hard-won, full-blown respect for every single moment spent in other places, with other people.
Engage planning mode. It wasn’t just us - I knew so many people who went on real vacations that summer. For our part, we had our eyes on autumn. Audrey’s birthday is in October - sure would be nice to have something resembling a regular party. Our annual trip to Palm Springs with friends is also in October - would make an amazing reunion after much time apart. Then David Byrne decided to return to Broadway in late September - as soon as those tickets were available, we snapped them up. And I had a required trip for family matters right in the middle of all of that.
For a moment I considered scrapping some of these plans, but that moment didn’t last long.
We’re doing it, I said. All of it. I’m not compromising one for another. We know the rules, we will keep ourselves safe, but we sure as hell are doing all the things.
I set Audrey’s party outdoors and supplied face shields for the kids. I made sure I had mail-in COVID tests on hand. I promised myself we’d always eat outdoors, that we’d keep our space from others.
Calling audibles
Yeah well hey…reality isn’t black and white like that. Eventually, you find yourself in restaurants that are indoor only but with wide-open doors and windows, so you decide to eat there. You’re waiting in a stuffy subway station so different from your usual arid environment, feeling for the first time that solid wall of humidity from behind a mask, and you have to fight every urge to rip it off your face. You realize that even while masking you are spending a large amount of time indoors with people who are not masking, in places that probably include the unvaccinated. You’re seeing family and other people that are deeply important to you, whom you know are vaccinated and careful to mask elsewhere. You need to talk and hug, and you decide to do those things with your actual face in the open because it’s worth it to you to take that very mitigated risk.
And…you didn’t have time between events to test yourself and get results before going to the next thing. They were too close together to account for the time it takes for the virus to manifest in your body and the time it would take to get results from a PCR test. In hindsight, a few rapid tests scattered between things would have covered it. I didn’t trust rapid tests and I didn’t think enough about it to plan ahead. The supply problem would force me to stockpile them months in advance. Thinking I could make PCR tests work was just me not thinking it through. The honest, ugly part is that I didn’t want anything canceled. I wanted to do everything.
I didn’t test. Even though I thought I would, I even said I would. I’m shocked, too.
At that moment, I did not do my best. Thankfully, all the other precautions added up to enough protection, but it’s not a good excuse. It could have been a bad outcome for me, and those around me.
In other ways, I did my best. “My best” was 18 months of hellish reality, following the rules day after day throughout all the hills and valleys of scientific consensus, and now measuring up situations in the moment with the knowledge I’d gained about the virus. “My best” also included knowing how important these interactions were to my mental well-being. Nobody “has to” fly to New York for fun, but everyone deserves a break that’s carefully taken.
And I didn’t get COVID.
It’s easy for me to say that I took the “smart” risks, that I made all the right choices. Hah. Such nodding confirmation bias while patting myself on the back is dizzying. As with most things that end well, I feel lucky. Yes, I did some things right. I did some things wrong. I’m hoping to take a little credit for going places to see people and managing to stay healthy. But it’s not an either/or situation. The gray area of engagement and safety is so wide it could swallow us all.
I sure as hell judged (and continue to judge) a lot of people throughout this pandemic, and some deserve it. I made mistakes along the way, and deserve judgment at points. This nearly-post-’Demi world is even less quantifiable.
Besides, kids’ll be vaxxed by Thanksgiving. Right?
Headphones
I hope y’all are STILL staying healthy, making choices that make sense for you and yours. We’re getting closer to normalcy, day by day. Thanks for reading!
Everything Takes Forever, but coming soon:
Crafting and cake
Thoughts on 2021 which is almost over?!
Whatever else, I guess
We've been extra cautious this whole time too. I took a chance this weekend and went to Morro Bay to hang out with a group of friends from Childhood. Most are vaxed, I'm a little wary that 2 aren't. We went to the beach, for walks. Ate in at the house we rented. I'm still worried. I did take a rapid test upon my return home yesterday and plan to take another in a few days just in case. I was so lovely to just be around people.
So many thoughts better commiserated over with beer or tea. But, I'll just say, I am SO sick and tired of the sudden panic, fear, and guilt cycle that comes with every time somebody in my family gets a damn sniffle. Also with having to be the one to hold the line whenever we are in those tricky situations where our own family boundaries are being tested.