I’m Not Special, I Need to Stop Acting Like I Am.
There were so many reasons I told myself it was ok to go home for Thanksgiving this year. I wasn’t going to quarantine for the full 14 necessary days beforehand but I was going to for a whole week because do you REALLY need 14 days or is that just suggested? I’m currently in a state with one of the highest rising numbers but come on, I’m just one person and I’ve been MOSTLY cautious. I was going to stay in a house without masks on with my mother, who would also have been quarantining for the week before I got there, which, ok, is not great but also are we really each supposed to spend the holiday totally alone? We’ve been through so much, it’s been such a hard year, we’ve both lost so many closest to us, we don’t really have to give up a holiday too right?
Yes my friends, why yes we do.
Is it likely I have Coronavirus? No. Will I be likely to give it to my mother? Not at all. But one of my best friends who is also a physician’s assistant, who has been on the front lines of the virus since it began said to me, in the kindest way possible, that while I may not be AS BAD as those yahoos who are still holding wedding ceremonies inside, I’m absolutely 10,000 percent a part of the problem if all I can come up with is a list of excuses as to why it’s ok if I flout the rules.
It’s right that we didn’t have to be here. I shouldn’t have to scour the internet figuring out where I could possibly get a test. My downtown area in New Milford should have signs like there are in my hometown of Western MA making everything a mandated mask zone. I shouldn’t have to see pictures on facebook and instagram of folks going home for holiday gatherings, of getting on airplanes to fly across the country. And, perhaps what hurts most of all, I shouldn’t have to be utterly and completely alone again, like I was in March and April, when everyone else seems to have a spouse, a child, a partner, to be with. Alone through Thanksgiving, and my birthday, and most likely Christmas and New Years and on and on too.
I am incredibly blessed and privileged for so many reasons. I have a home and a dog who tolerates hugs and a cat who loves to snuggle. I am headed now to the grocery store where I have a credit card I can put groceries on to last a few weeks. I live with plentiful access to nature where I can walk for hours without seeing anyone else so it’s actually ok if I go unmasked. The jobs I have created are remote and carry on (even though it really is difficult to work some days with looming dread building up constantly like calcium). The list goes on.
But perhaps what I am most privileged to have, in a world where it seems many do not, is a conscious, and a moral compass that has always made me care greatly for the greater good. Even if our local, state and federal politicians seem to be ignoring it, the Coronavirus IS getting worse. And the winter IS going to be a disaster because of people like me who think we’re the exception instead of following what should be the rules. My small actions will not stop the impending tide but, just like getting out the vote, just like in antiracism actions, I want to know that I did everything I could when looking back on this moment in time.
And I hope you will too.
