I wondered how long I would gaze with mistrust at other people, wondering if they were a source of germs (the coronavirus, or the run-of-the-mill colds that still keep my children out of school until PCR results return). I wondered when this would all be over, and I worried that the answer was never. I wondered how long it would be before I felt less angry.
My sister and I long for normalcy, but we see our elderly and immune-compromised father regularly. My sister’s wife has a chronic illness, and our preschoolers are unvaccinated. We are more Covid cautious than some, and less cautious than others. How easy it is to feel that people who are not just like us are paranoid on the one hand or reckless on the other.
Such characterizations might briefly soothe the hurts that we have all accumulated: the casual eugenics present in the dismissals of deaths of people with pre-existing conditions; the reckless sexism present in the indifference to the availability of in-person school; the cruel uncompensated loss of paychecks, customers and clients; the intimate-partner violence and substance abuse that has swelled behind closed doors; the crushing loneliness that comes from working behind a mask or seeing few people outside of your home. People have split themselves into warring factions over measures like mask mandates and school closures, with each side minimizing the harms about which the other is concerned. Many of us feel abandoned.
I have observed the wreckage of the past 25 months. Women have asked me, with terrifying urgency, how they can continue to live their lives entirely in their homes when a violent family member renders the home unsafe. I have watched people turn toward substances to ease the pressures of the pandemic, and then enter rehab reluctantly or hopefully; I have listened to their family members and friends recount relapses, the shame and fear making their words all but inaudible.
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