My December to Remember: Day 22
If all this means that I can’t participate in your little society, then fine. Shun me. That’s what this is starting to feel like. Ostracization. I walked home today and just saw sign after sign on each New York City business: present your pass in order to eat at this establishment. Partake, whatever. You can’t come in unless you show that pass. I thought some people would be cool about it and say, “yeah, we know it’s BS too,” and let me on in. That’s not so. I’ve been in two separate places that asked for my pass. I held up my phone and winked. “It’s right here,” I said. No one understood. They were puzzled as to why I wasn’t showing them the pass. I had to finally ask, am I not allowed in if I don’t show it? They told me yes, so I was on my way. Or I ate outside instead. Or I got lucky and stayed in a little speakeasy until closing time. I eventually find what I want, I guess.
It’s fine. No, honestly. It’s annoying, and I’m still that ranting lady on the street, but it’s fine. I know these past few entries have turned into a diary of sorts, but there’s a lot to document, quote, “in the middle of a pandemic.” It’s the one thing I really want to talk about. Because they’re about to hole me back up in my abode until further notice, and no one’s stopped to ask me how I feel about that. We’re going back to a time where we have to hunker down and wait it out, just like did at the beginning of this mess. But that was the right thing to do at the time. We didn’t know what had breached our shores, but we were prepared to fight it. March 2020 mindset. All in this together. I get it. We all did our part to make sure we were safe.
Now? I can’t go into my office because I didn’t get a medical procedure that’s just making everyone sicker. Only for a time, though. It is flu season after all.
I just wish I could get past all the “you must” talk about it. The president just told Americans it’s practically their patriotic duty to get a shot. Funny that I thought part of that duty was to stand up to unjust laws. Like covering my perfectly healthy face with a piece of cloth because a governor who was not elected says anyone ages two and up have to have one on in an indoor setting. How do you expect me to stand behind anything that advocates cruelty to children?
I know part of me is ostracizing myself when I espouse views in this manner. I wish I wasn’t, but I don’t have a whole lot of social outlets these days. I’m just at home, writing, working out, eating, and getting baked. It’d be fun to be at a health club and swim a few laps a day, or get a monthly pass to the Met and just walk around for a few hours. But no. Off limits for only a thousand more years. So what else can I do? Still won’t get it. At least right now. Maybe when I’m in my seventies and not in the greatest health, I’ll choose to get the new yearly flu shot. That seems like a no-brainer to me. But right now, in my mid-thirties, I have no intention of getting one. Simple as that.
Except it’s not simple. It’s completely taken over the entire American psyche. The White House can’t go one discussion without bringing up vaccines, or saying there’s a big problem because of no testing kits, or “the unvaccinated” are a thing to be feared while “the vaccinated” are safe but don’t mind that they’re also getting sick with the new variant even though we keep trying to blame it on the ones who didn’t take the same medicine they did, even though they’ve all been gathering together without us for a few months… I mean, phew. I’m sorry. It’s just so maddening sometimes. It seems so crystal clear to me that the simple solution is to just stop everything that we’re doing and let the chaos work its way back to flat ground.
But that can’t happen. Because no one’s asked me what I think about all this. They all won’t get to hear my great ideas. I’m the one who has to stay home. I’m the one who has something wrong with her. I’m the one who doesn’t get an extra bonus for uploading her vax-status. And so? What else can I do about it? Where else can this energy go? I try not to let it out at work. At least when no one is around. I don’t trauma dump my opinions onto people, and I don’t tell anyone outside of the show what to do. I just want to work with these people, get to know them, have a good time, and then go home.
And you know something? I still got narced on. Like I knew one day someone would. I was warned people are scared shitless, and I guess I manifested it. On Christmas week, no less. I was told my simple, white silk scarf could no longer serve as a proper face covering. I needed “an official mask” now. Because someone saw me and told me “You need a mask,” as it’s against the rules to be maskless in the control room. It infuriated me. I sat silent for minutes, maybe longer when I received, in writing, that I needed to put a proper mask on. I just felt so broken. So tired. So unbelievably done with all this.
Why, why, why can’t people just let some things slide? You can’t just be cool for a few more days and let me wear my pretty scarf? I was covering my face. Even so, I’m not sick, I’m not worried about getting sick, and I’m not going to apologize for that. Going into work is about the only social activity I get to do these days, and they’re taking that away from me. And then when I do talk about things like this, I get called selfish. I just can’t win. I’m a professional loser. It’s a never-ending cycle where I feel like I’m just chewing on my toes over and over again until one day I gnaw away so much that I implode in on myself like a dying star.
We’ve been caught in the loop of “staying safe.” I want everyone to feel safe, but I cannot abide by these safety rules it when it comes at another person’s expense. Especially if it’s mine, because, well, self-preservation. If this is “selfish,” then so be it. Because it is never my intention to put anyone else at risk. I just want people to figure out how not to be afraid of living again. And when reasoning doesn’t help or the conversation never begins, sometimes becoming a little wrench in the machinery is the only tactic one has left.
One thing I know won’t get us there is repeating the same cycle that caused so much destruction in the first place. If something isn’t working, we never admit fault. We just try it again until we can fudge the numbers enough to make it look like it was a success. Shutting back down, going into panic mode, and letting all the nefarious ones feed on your fear is going to make it that much harder to crawl back out of this toxic cycle and begin to get back to ‘normal.’
We’re all so close. We just have to stop wishing for bad outcomes for people. How another person lives their life has no bearing on yours whatsoever. We have “rules” in place, but try and understand why someone would willingly ‘break’ it. Things will be a lot better if we worked to understand one another. Maybe spending a bit more time with myself at home will be the best thing for me. It’s not like I’ve lost myself or don’t know who I am. There’s some other housekeeping that needs to be done to get me to the next level. No more crazy ranting lady on the street. Perhaps these entries will find direction once again. In the meantime, I thank you for listening. I’m not sure what people are expecting from me in these entries, but at least they’re going out. Maybe we all need a little disappearing in on oneself from time to time. Perhaps something new will emerge from the nothingness of our vanishing. We’re kind of getting a chance to start over again. At least, that’s how it is in the Northeastern United States.