So: this is my life.
I was born after the last Presidential assassination and the Beatles’ introduction to America. The ever-unpopular Vietnam War began before I started to walk, and extreme civil unrest overwhelmed the country.
Before I started kindergarten, a man walked on the moon. While I was in elementary school, the Beatles broke up. Drugs became prolific. Bob Hope and Pete Rose were popular. I don’t remember segregation, but I don’t remember knowing anyone Black until the 12th grade, when they finally “integrated” our school.
Times have changed some things. I remember my mom hanging clothes on the line, for example; she hand-washed our dishes for most of my childhood. We used oil to make popcorn and french fries, and Mom baked with sugar and flour. Nothing came from a box.
I remember wild celebrations when our country celebrated its 200th birthday, and waiting in long, long lines during a gasoline shortage. In my lifetime, cars shrunk from boat-sized to bumper-car-sized; SUVs didn’t appear until I was out of high school. Electric cars were a pipe dream.
Microwaves and cable TV arrived at our house at about the same time. I was in high school, which meant I could heat up frozen (“healthy”) broccoli with cheese to eat while watching Grease on TV for the 35th time during our bi-monthly free preview of HBO.
The corded telephone that reached almost to the TV room didn’t become obsolete for another 15 years. My childhood included Brady-esque fighting with my sisters over whose turn it was to use the phone – and whispering to my friends so no one could hear my conversations from four feet away.
The first computer we had allowed me to play a game alone; there were no graphics. I would type “TURN LEFT” and it would respond with “A WALL IS ON YOUR LEFT.” Thankfully, video game arcades came out when I was in high school, which made it much easier for me to play games with others.
I was in college when the space shuttle exploded; a decade later I heard about a rover landing on Mars. Somewhere in between, the internet became the first and strongest thread to hold together a planet that now uses it mostly to chit-chat across borders and send videos of tabby cats playing hockey.
I got my first cell phone when I was pregnant, since Bill needed a way to know immediately if I went into labor. We spent a fortune on those phones but my water broke on a Saturday morning, so we didn’t need them. I thought we’d send them back; instead we now pay for five of them.
Like everyone in 2001, I remember a terrorist attack on our soil. Dylan was nine months old; I feigned normalcy for his sake. I thought it would be the worst thing I’d ever see.
I was wrong.
As my children grew, cameras evolved too quickly for us to keep up. We have hundreds of hours of unwatchable film of our children. And we can’t afford to transfer them to a watchable format unless we give up our Indian, Thai, Italian and Chinese takeout.
We still have music on records – some older than I am. But the albums, eight-tracks, cassette tapes and – now – CDs are rarely used. Sometimes Shane’s music suddenly blasts from a living room speaker while he’s in his bedroom.
We have an automatic garage door, motion-activated lights in our yard, and jacuzzi jets in the bath. We don’t rake or shovel; we blow. I do my banking by clicking a couple of “buttons” on a computer. My coin collection has a penny from 1934. I expect my grandchildren will ask, “What’s a penny?”
So far, I’ve survived a worldwide pandemic that has killed 1.6 million people. I pray that future generations don’t face another one. But now that I am older, I recognize history repeating itself.
Still, I can only imagine the future.
An unexpected delight of this pandemic is having NFL football on TV.
When it started this summer, I was against it. I thought about James Conner, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ star running back, who had Stage 2 Hodgkin lymphoma in college and came back from the deadly disease to play in the NFL.
Knowing that prior cancer puts him in the VERY high risk category with COVID, I thought about James Conner’s family. I sincerely hoped that James Conner wouldn’t play.
But he did. In fact, most of the NFL players came back. Some of them had COVID in the summer, before games even started. Whole groups of NFL players are being quarantined left and right, but they are somehow still playing football.
So when the season started and I had nothing better to do, I watched football. I watched a bunch of Steelers games, because they are my favorite.
But sometimes the Steelers aren’t on TV, since I live in Maryland. So I watched Ravens games. I watched the Red— er, Washington Football Team games. I watched the Browns and the Bengals. I even watched teams I’d hardly seen before, like the Detroit Lions, the Las Vegas Raiders and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
As the season wore on, COVID started forcing teams to delay games. No one ever talks about whether or not these young men are getting sick. The football world just talks about the “COVID protocol” and there’s a list of names, like soldiers – players who are not playing.
The list of players who have been in “COVID protocol” is extensive. Some teams have dozens. Others have one. I don’t think any teams are left without at least one player having been removed for that “protocol.” Seattle Seahawks – emanating from the area where the first deaths were reported – had one on “protocol” but they still report all players as healthy.
However it’s happening, NFL football is on TV all the time. The Steelers/Ravens game was delayed so many times, they ended up playing on a Wednesday afternoon! The following week, there were two games on a Tuesday! It’s been like Football Heaven – especially since it’s cold outside and there’s literally nothing else I want to do.
I have learned about a bunch of new teams, and I’ve even grown attached to some of them. The Kansas City Chiefs, for example, are amazing. And I really like the Jacksonville Jaguars’ team colors.
With my new YouTube TV, I can record every game that’s on, so I can watch the games faster, without wasting time on commercials or halftime. I’m honestly having a ton of fun!
The only real problem I have is … James Conner. Weeks ago, he dropped out of sight and into the mysterious COVID protocol. No one in Maryland is talking about him, or wondering about him, the way I am.
But James Conner, age 25, is still in that “COVID protocol.” He’s gone without playing for a pretty long time. And in the back of my mind, with every game I watch, I think – I hope he’s okay.
Just today, someone said he’s coming back to play on Sunday. But he did test positive for the virus – and what does that mean for a cancer survivor, even a young one? Will he be okay?
If James Conner comes back on Sunday, and he can breathe and run like he used to, I can go back to enjoying football without worrying.
Or at least, that’s what I tell myself so that I can continue to enjoy football.
No one wants to hear my woes, but I am still struggling with food.
I don’t mean “I’m on a diet” or “I’m craving chocolate.” I mean, my thyroid stopped working many years ago, and I am on a slow path of unstoppable self-destruction unless I cure it.
There’s no way to do this with medication. The entire Western world believes that if I take a pill (recommended by 99% of doctors out there), my symptoms will go away. And they will! Temporarily.
But the underlying problem will still be there. I’ve researched and read so much, I feel like I could open my own thyroid disorder practice.
I have worked with four doctors. The Chinese doctor gave me herbs which improved my health immediately. I had no idea I was sick until she showed me I could get better. Unfortunately, those herbs weren’t a cure as much as a symptom-reliever.
After that I went to a traditional doctor who, like most, offered me a pill. When I told her I wanted to take desiccated thyroid (a suggestion from a library book), she sent me to an integrative medicine specialist.
I worked with Dr. Leo for two years. Blood tests showed that I needed other help, too. I am feeling better than I ever have. But the doctor didn’t seem to care much about my individual case. He was throwing supplements at me the way someone might splatter paint on a wall and call it “art.”
He put me on a multitude of random diets. And he was giving me so many supplements, they didn’t fit into a single-day pill box.
So I tried another integrative health specialist. He told me that I should take a test to determine what foods were causing my autoimmune disorder.
Duh.
A test like that exists?! The books and my other three doctors hadn’t mentioned it. Doctor #4 got me the test – but it took him two months to send a phlebotomist to my house to draw blood – and when she finally arrived, she didn’t take enough blood – so I never got my results.
So I did some more research and found out that there was an even better test, and I could get it myself, and pay less money. Within two weeks, I got the test, set up my own phlebotomist, and had blood drawn. Soon I should receive results with a long-term food plan.
So I said a little prayer the night before the phlebotomist visited, and I asked God: Please help me to finally figure out what I need to do to heal my body. With the amount of conflicting advice out there, and the number of relatively useless doctors I’ve visited, I figured it was time to bring in the big guns.
God answered immediately.
The next day, I went to the library and picked up a bunch of random books on thyroid care. And there in the stack was a book that – so far – has answered every, single question I’ve ever had. This book explains everything, and gives concrete advice on how to move forward.
This is not the first book I’ve read about thyroid disorders – in fact, it may be the 30th. But it is the first one that specifically addresses absolutely everything I need to know to naturally heal my thyroid. Finally. By the time my test results get here, I will be done with the book, and I can finally take a step forward instead of continuing to slowly die.
Thank you, God.
I have been relatively comfortable during this pandemic. We have a warm, spacious house. My husband still has a job so we have food. Since he works in healthcare, but not on the front lines, we’ve even got access to quality PPE. Our kids have been home – and wonderful – for 10 months.
Whereas Bill was on my last nerve by the end of March 2020, he’s okay now. I’ve certainly spent more time with him. And my dog has been the greatest blessing of the whole, miserable year.
I’ve spent my days lounging and researching whatever pops into my head. I’ve gotten to know some long-ago friends a little better through social media. Most of the days have been pleasant enough weather for a relaxing, long walk. And I have done stupid amounts of online shopping, once again guaranteeing that I’ve finished Christmas preparations before the holidays even started.
In the evenings, Bill and I generally sit around for an hour or two and watch TV. And that’s just what we were doing the other night – relaxing and mindlessly gazing at the TV – when we both saw it. In the adjacent room, something streaked across the floor.
“I just saw a mouse!” I screamed, leaping to my feet.
“I saw it, too!” Bill said, much calmer and not leaping.
We have had mice before. It’s a nightmare. Exterminators checked our house, and plugged up one hole on our 2004-built house, where the A/C hose connects. The property is secure. The only way a mouse could get in now is through our garage door, which is impossible to fully barricade.
Our house is clean, with all new flooring and carpets. Our food is always packaged and put away. We don’t have piles of crap where mice could live. There has been no evidence of mice anywhere for years. And after our prior experience, we’ve been very, very cautious.
But on this night, there was evidence that we somehow hadn’t done enough.
The mouse darted under the jukebox – a 1960s Wurlitzer – and peeked out as we came closer. It was definitely a mouse. And we had it surrounded.
But that’s where our advantage stopped. It moved like lightning. We couldn’t catch it. We couldn’t trap it. We couldn’t even lure it into any of our baited mousetraps – the ones Bill ran to get from the garage, which we tossed all around the jukebox.
Unfortunately, it was a smart mouse. And we know that if there’s one smart mouse, there are probably a few dozen more nearby.
We stared at the jukebox. I pushed it around a bit, hoping to frighten it into one of the traps. Eventually, we gave up and went to bed.
The next night, when I’d forgotten all about it, it raced from under the TV directly at me, and hid under my seat. I only hope it’s the same, singular mouse.
We have traps and poison all over the house now – safely away from the dog, of course. But my warm, comfortable haven is no longer a pleasant respite from the world outside.
Now it’s a war zone. I wear big slipper boots to protect myself, but I tiptoe around, sure that I could be scampered upon at any moment.
I mistakenly prayed for God to send the mouse out of the house on its own. I didn’t want to hurt the mouse. Since I am a big believer in the power of prayer, I am now afraid that it might leave on its own, and I’ll never know that it’s gone.
I’ll just stay frightened of my own floor.
Thanksgiving was a mixed blessing. Everyone was healthy, but we couldn’t sit around and chat all day with my parents, who make everything a party. Even though the weather was gorgeous all day, we ate our turkey inside, just the four of us, after it grew dark.
The day started off with a sure high note: Dylan’s COVID test results came back: NEGATIVE. But the numbers are still rising, and it’s likely going to get way worse over the next month. Most of the people I know didn’t “gather” on Thanksgiving day.
But when I walked the dog, 20 guys were playing football in the park. One – only one – wore a mask.
My stepson and sister-in-law, who were previously holed up like hermits, had brunch with us on our back porch, socially distanced and masked. At one point, my sister-in-law, who is mentally challenged, wandered into our house and sat down for 20 minutes. My husband didn’t notice that she’d wandered off, and I was in another room and didn’t see her. I’m not sure we can trust her enough to have her back for Christmas.
Still: having my immediate family alive and well is really all that mattered this year.
But Dylan chose Thanksgiving Day to be moody and mean to me. I was talking to my stepson about the pronoun usage “they/them” for people who believe they are misgendered, because I have a hard time with it, and Dylan jumped in, attacking me.
[As an aside, I have no problem with people who are misgendered; I simply don’t like the use of the plural pronouns for a singular being. I prefer that the American language add a new, all-encompassing pronoun instead of reusing the term we already use for groups. It isn’t a judgment on people; it’s a judgment on language.]
Dylan, however, is at the age – still – where everything I do or say is wrong. He seems to have no concern for my feelings as a human being. At brunch, he was condescending and mean. He disappeared for hours until dinner, at which point he acted sullen and sarcastic. When asked what he was grateful for, Dylan said, “I’m grateful for people who aren’t judgmental and who allow people to be who they are.”
Dylan not only missed my point, but he didn’t care to listen the 17 times I tried to explain. Eventually, long after dinner, I went up to his room and knocked on his locked door. I explained one more time, as best I could, that it is a language issue – not a judgment on humans.
“Do you really believe that I am prejudiced?” I asked. “Did I raise you to be that way?”
Dylan had very little to say to me. “I’m just done with this conversation” was his overarching response.
Shane – who would never attack me or anyone else – said, at the dinner table, that if someone wants to be referred to with they/them pronouns, then we should at least try to do that, for them.
And I understand that completely. I still don’t like the pronouns, but at least Shane didn’t shove a hot iron down my throat when making his point. And I was able to hear Shane’s thoughts substantially better than Dylan’s, which were delivered with nothing but fire.
So Thanksgiving came and went. And while I was tremendously grateful for the health and well-being of my family, my feelings were trampled upon all day like so much dirt.
The day after Thanksgiving, Dylan was back to his normal, jovial self.
But even two days later, I’m still not.
Dylan got his COVID test yesterday. He only had to wait four days – which, according to some, is the perfect amount of time to wait to see if he was exposed on the airplane.
In the time he waited just for the test (still waiting for the results), he stayed six feet away from us, but took off his mask as soon as he got home. He went to Starbucks twice. And he worked as a delivery driver for three days – double shifts – at Outback Steakhouse, which means that he came into contact with all of his coworkers for all of those days, plus any of the (25% capacity) patrons who were near him indoors, and everyone who came to the door to sign for the delivery.
Dylan wore a mask, so at least he was not as contagious as those people at the Burger King who may or may not still be contaminating customers and coworkers.
Meanwhile, it is Thanksgiving week. We are averaging 173,000 new COVID cases a day in the U.S. And it’s just going up. According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, who we all know and I adore, we should be ultra-careful in making plans for the holiday.
“Even if it’s a very small group, to the extent possible, keep the mask on,” Fauci said. “Nothing is going to be perfect in this. Obviously, it’s kind of difficult to be eating and drinking at a dinner with a mask on.”
But Fauci added that if all attendees at a gathering quarantined and tested negative for COVID-19 before the gathering, the risk of someone getting infected would be lower, although nothing is “risk-free.”
“Of course, it’s not 100 percent that they couldn’t have gotten infected from the time they got tested to the time they got there.”
For Thanksgiving this year, we are having a brief breakfast with my stepson and sister-in-law, who will have their own tables on the back porch of our house, six feet away. No one new will be indoors, even though they have both been ultra-careful in seeing virtually no one beforehand. Neither works outside the house, and my stepson has even distanced himself from his girlfriend for more than a week.
We plan to run a large, loud heater so that we don’t freeze while we eat outside. Later, indoors, Bill is making a turkey (his choice) and Thanksgiving dinner will be just the four of us, hopefully safely.
My parents, who have been the backbone of my Thanksgivings for 56 years, will have Thanksgiving alone, together, three miles away. We’ve made it this far – nine months – meeting outdoors with them and not contaminating them. And they’ve stayed safe and healthy, which is what we all want more than anything in the world.
So – especially after my sudden onset of a cold a week ago, and the terror that ensued believing I’d spent time too close to my mother – we will be having a very non-traditional Thanksgiving this year.
Meanwhile, I am watching many of my Facebook friends hop on planes and disappear into the wild blue yonder for the holiday. And I cringe, and I pray, and I wait.
Lately, it seems, I just spend my entire life waiting.
Dylan flew to Texas to see his girlfriend. While it will be his last trip for awhile, it isn’t his first since the pandemic started. For me, of course, it is agonizing. Lately, I’ve even been considering asking him to stop working at his delivery job.
He is almost 20. It’s time for him to make his own decisions. We are always very careful on our end, and his girlfriend and her family are equally cautious.
But there’s the plane ride. No matter how much you tell me about the “safer” filtered air, I am a mess with him getting on the plane. So we got him a face shield, in addition to his N95 mask, which he wore in the airports and on the plane. After that, he was in his girlfriend’s car and house – so I could breathe again.
Still, given the surging numbers, I thought it would be a good idea to schedule a COVID test for his return; so I did. After two days of trying to get him into the CVS drive-thru where I got my test – and finding that they only scheduled two days in advance – I gave up and found a clinic that schedules further out. I chose a clinic we’ve used before, and I made the Friday morning appointment for him.
When Dylan showed up for his test, however, he discovered that I’d made it for the wrong Friday. The first available appointment was two weeks from when I made it! There was nothing at all available for the current week, and Dylan was sent away. For whatever reason, they couldn’t just swab him while he was there. They told him to come back in a week.
Which begs the question: what about people who actually have COVID?
What is happening to those people? Where are they going? How are they being tested? How long are they waiting to be tested? By the time their test time rolls around, it’s been two weeks! How is THAT helpful?
All of this happened after we tried to get him a COVID test the last time he went to Texas – and he went to a place that was swarmed with maskless people clamoring for their tests. In a way, it was worse going to his first appointment because there were sick people everywhere, and he couldn’t get away from them.
There’s been a lot of talk about testing in the news, and I guess I never realized just how horrid this situation has become. If you have a symptom, you need a test. If you are contagious and you want a test quickly, you have to go to a no-appointment-necessary clinic, which is swamped with sick people, where you may or may not contract the virus while you’re waiting to be tested.
And that’s where Dylan has to go tomorrow – back to a place where he’s more likely to contract the virus at the facility than he was on the plane.
The only other option? Wait two weeks to be tested – by which time he could have contaminated an entire community by himself.
Writing about this makes me think it’s a better idea to get him an appointment next week, on one of his days off of work, so he can go to the contactless drive-thru like I did. I think I will try to make that happen instead.
Thanks for listening as I talked my way through this.
Last week, I caught a cold. I think. I woke up with a scratchy throat that lasted all day. Shortly after dinner, I thought, I don’t feel well. I think I’ll go lie down.
My head had barely hit the pillow on the living room couch when I panicked: I AM SICK!
Suddenly I remembered: About a week before, I’d been inside a Burger King where the employees refused to wear masks. I’d even confronted them about it. One employee pretended not to hear me while her mask lingered on her chin; the other said he had a “medical condition” and therefore felt justified in wearing his mask on his bottom lip.
I got up off the couch and put myself into quarantine.
Bill made an appointment for me to be tested – two days later, since that was the first available appointment. I went to sleep for ten hours. I was sick. By the time I went to get my test – a drive-through, no-contact place where I literally swabbed myself and deposited my nasal sample into a bin – I felt pretty awful.
I went straight back into quarantine after the test, and stayed there waiting the two-to-three days for the results. It’s amazing how being actually sick reminded me how quickly it can happen, and how many people I could have contaminated.
During quarantine, I stayed in my closed bedroom. I had a smart phone, a TV and access to my own bathroom. Life was pretty good, although it did feel like I was imprisoned. I missed my kids. Even my dog didn’t want to hang out with me for very long, especially once he realized that I wasn’t going to feed him or walk him.
I was fortunate enough to have people to feed me, too. Dylan went out and got soup for me; Bill got me more of the same soup two days later. I did feel awful – but then, I started to feel better.
Once I felt better, I got bored really fast.
I read some of my book. I stared out the window at the leaves falling from the trees, at the birds flying to and fro, and – when I was lucky – at the deer wandering past. When it got dark, I binge-watched Young Sheldon and NFL football. After it got late enough to claim “bedtime,” I slept for 10-12 hours.
I felt mostly better after four days, but I was a slug. It didn’t occur to me to clean the room until near the end of my 72-hour wait for COVID test results.
I didn’t clean, though. Instead I checked Facebook and email and – again – my health portal, which still showed no results. Three days had passed, and all I had was a note saying: “Test results are usually available in 2 to 5 days; during peak times, this may take 6 to 10 days.”
I watched more news, describing the worldwide virus surge, and assumed I could be stuck in that room for another full week.
Then, sometime after dark, I got a text: “Your results are available.”
Fully recovered, I bounced upright on my bed to see those results. At first, all I saw was the five-paragraph explanation – and had to scroll back up to see what I had missed at the top of the announcement.
The word NEGATIVE was at the top, in green letters.
I’ve never been so happy to see that word in my life. I took a screenshot and texted it to my family with the caption: “I am free!”
And indeed, five long days after my self-imposed isolation, I am free.
While we all await the election results, a disturbing trend is cutting through social media – at least in the youth sector.
My kids are seeing posts that say (and I paraphrase): “If you’re friends with a Trump supporter, you can’t be friends with me.” Most of these kids aren’t even old enough to vote – so what does this say about what we adults have taught them?
I will admit that it’s hard – extremely, agonizingly hard – to realize that people I love don’t believe the same things I do. And it’s not just opinions, it’s issues of morality and ethics and the core of humanity. People in my own family – many of them – have called me horrible names, and/or stopped speaking to me altogether, because I am a liberal.
I’m not a different person; I just believe that I am right on some platforms of enormous importance. I’m not going to apologize for my beliefs. They are strong beliefs and they are mine.
But I only get one vote. Everyone gets one vote. We all (I hope) voted.
In the past four years, I have watched the country separate into parts. Unlike some of my family and friends, though, I think “disowning” and “unfriending” people seems both harsh and ridiculous. I don’t like Donald Trump, but I don’t have to hang out with Donald Trump. And by staying connected to people who support him, I’m able to get a glimpse into their lives, their values, their concerns and their thoughts.
I may not understand their choices – and I may never truly understand – but I like and dearly love some of these people. They are still the same people; I’m just getting to know them a little better through all of this mayhem.
So if they want to disown me, that’s their choice. It’s their right. I’ve never been one to depend on a slew of friends, propping me upright so I don’t keel over. I’ve always had a few ultra-close friends, and they generally share my values. I married a Republican, but our core values – the reason we raise our kids together so well – are very much in sync.
But saying something like “if you’re friends with a Trump supporter…” or “if you support Trump…” – well, that’s the same, sideways, somewhat sick generalization that made “stereotype” and “prejudice” household words.
We all believe what we believe. Obviously, the line is drawn in the sand – but literally half the population of this country doesn’t believe the same thing I do. Why does that mean – automatically – we have to hate?
I admit that I don’t understand supporting Trump. I wholly understand the other sides of the issues – but I don’t understand supporting the man. Maybe I will go to my grave not understanding. But I refuse to go to my grave hating people who – like me – are doing the absolute best they can with their own knowledge and beliefs.
There are huge, hot issues at hand. There are subjects of debate that are worth serious discussion. And there is obviously an enormous disconnect in communication that has caused us all to start lumping groups of people – well, into groups.
But if we’re going to get through this thing together – this United States thing – we’re going to have to find a way to talk to each other, to understand one another, and to be there for the people who believe – just as strongly as I do – in things that truly matter to all of us.
We can’t go forward if we stay divided. We need to understand one another. We need to communicate and be there for each other.
So to the youth of America: stay friends with your friends, no matter what. It’s the only way we, as a country, can stay together.
Tomorrow is the election, but I won’t write about it today.
Instead, I am going back to Halloween. My sons have loved Halloween for their entire lives. They love the scare factor of creepy creatures, haunted houses, and horror films. They love the feel of the air at the fall festivals, and the sheer joy in family hayrides. They even admire the leaves as they turn.
For the Hawkins family, it has been a time of great – and traditional – fun every year. And then came the pandemic.
So when September started to wane and all the days still looked the same, I made a list of things we could do. We’d never been apple picking before, but we could do that. The drive-in was two hours away, but if we got our tickets early, we could do that. I made the list and the family voted on what they most wanted to do, and we did those things.
The only thing they chose to skip was a kitschy online “festival” of monster movie shorts. The boys wanted to do everything. So we did.
Halloween movie night at home came complete with trick-or-treat sized candy bars. We found a drive-through haunted house, which was truly creepy and wonderful. We went to our favorite festival (which was closed) just for the drive-through hayride. We apple-picked; we had Halloween Jackbox Night. And thanks to a generous neighbor, we decorated our yard like never before.
Then, on Halloween night, we went to the nearest drive-in and watched Hocus Pocus and Goosebumps, even though Halloween was playing on the other screen. It’s what the kids picked.
All the movies were sold out, because it was a most brilliant idea for Halloween night. Trick-or-treating was canceled, so Shane’s usual clown antics were also canceled. No one even mentioned it; we had fun with our untraditional new Halloween activity. We even took the dog.
Bill drove home, so I browsed through Instagram. New photos popped up from many of my sons’ friends: Halloween parties – big and small. So many teenagers and young adults, hanging out in large and small groups, smiling from ear to ear, hugging and posing for the camera.
Hugging. In groups. Indoors. And smiling – which I could see easily, because no one was wearing a mask.
It didn’t matter which state they were in, or what time of life. They had all seemingly decided that Halloween was a good time to forget all the rules and risk getting COVID-19.
Having gone to a ton of trouble to make sure we had other fun things to do, it was mind-blowing to see that other people didn’t bother. Sure, everywhere we went was frequented by other people – but we didn’t interact with those people, let alone go mask-less or hug them. We sure didn’t invite along a handful of friends – because unlike my sons’ friends, we knew we had to be meticulous because of the virus.
So again, I wait. In addition to waiting for election results, I will wait for two weeks, to see if the friends are okay. And then it will be Thanksgiving, and then Christmas, and I will wait to see who is able to get through those holidays without illness.
Waiting for a vaccine is hard enough. I wish there were more people who could wait to see their friends or who, like my boys, will see one friend at a time, wearing a mask, staying outdoors. They don’t do it often, but they do it safely.
I just don’t see a lot of “safe” behavior out there. I know it’s hard; in fact, it’s agonizing. But it is worthwhile. It’s so worthwhile.
Just. Wait.
