At the end of the day…

It’s been a while since I’ve written any colorful rants or any other opinion pieces because frankly, I’m exhausted from the stress of dealing with the pandemic. My husband and I are still wearing masks out in public and will do so for the foreseeable future. We visited our grandchildren a week ago and plan to do so soon. We’ll be celebrating their birthdays and I can tell you quite honestly, these two kids are a miracle.

At 4 and 2, they have simply changed our lives, and our hearts, forever. It was the first time we’ve seen our granddaughter since she was a few months old, and it was the very first time meeting our grandson. The pandemic kept us apart and it was heartbreaking. Their mom is expecting our third grandchild early next year and we couldn’t be happier. Our youngest son is a dad…and an amazing dad at that. And our daughter-in-law, well, we couldn’t ask for a better mommy to those two (and soon to be three) beautiful children.

As the pandemic wore on, having to negotiate around people who refused to wear masks in grocery stores became overwhelming almost immediately. I was outraged and it was all Jerry could do to keep me from screaming at every single offender. It seemed as if they were taunting everyone in the store by not wearing masks. Every one of them had weird smiles on their faces as they traipsed about the store as if they were doing something revolutionary instead of something monumentally stupid.

This was never an us versus them situation or one that involved an expression of personal sovereignty. No. This was stupidity. Period. Blame it on the latest conspiracy theory all you like, or on the former guy, if you want, but the truth is, each person made his or her own decision to not socially distance or wear a mask to save others when they could have done so. How many died because of their negligence and abject stupidity? How many children have lost one or more parents, or grandparents, due to their pathetic choice?

And now some of them think the vaccine places microchips in our bodies or that they cause our faces to suddenly become magnetic. They scream at people who wear masks in public, ridiculing them for being safe. Either they don’t believe the virus is real or that they don’t think it’s any worse than the flu. They’re wrong, but they don’t care. And the rest of us are left with deciding how to go about our lives in a manner that’s safe. Because as we all know, the current variant is highly contagious, and depending upon the demographics involved, the last thing anyone needs is to do is stop wearing protection.

I’ve always known that I can ultimately count only on myself. It’s not that I can’t count on my husband, because after forty-two years together, it’s clear that I can. But at the end of the day, it would have been nice to count on others around me. It would have been nice if we could have all come together and dealt with the virus…given it nowhere to travel by masking up…and then it would have been done. But no. Some of us just couldn’t do it. And they still can’t.

The problem is, I can’t unknow what I know. Whether this comes down to political beliefs or it doesn’t, I think I’ve always given people a pass and tried to see the best when it wasn’t even visible. And now, I can’t unknow what I know. I know they didn’t care about me or anyone else. And that matters.

I don’t feel angry anymore, just emotionally spent. And it’s almost as if I can’t see any of them anymore. They’re a sea of maskless faces and they all run together. I leave the property only when I need to and I’m back to making excuses about doing even that. I work in my garden, write, and spend time with my husband who feels the same as I do. Maybe it’s PTSD. Or maybe we’ve simply had enough. Maybe we have had to deal with so much fear that we just can’t deal with anything more.

So, we’ll take our time and sit in our garden and watch the bees, the hummingbirds, and look forward to seeing our grandchildren. And at the end of the day, that’s all that really matters.