It Continues

 I have sat in rooms with adults who are not wearing masks. I had no way of knowing if they are vaccinated, boosted, or infected. There was no protocol for making these distinctions. I went in wearing my mask, but as it was a social occasion I felt odd sitting there with my wife and I being the only one with our faces covered. 

This is the moment that I made what might have been a poor choice. I took off my mask. Rather than feel awkward, my wife and I took a chance of catching a virus that has killed millions. Feeling awkward apparently outweighs feeling dead. 

Or very sick. We continue to navigate a world in which COVID-19 infects and kills hundreds every day. But we have all grown tired and just a little too clever for our own good. My son and I spent two days in Disneyland having our insistence on mask wearing systematically worn down. In an amusement park packed full of strangers, however, we were able to stick to our plan: Not to get sick. This plan worked quite well until we all gathered together at home and my wife brought me a special gift from her trip to Italy. I was very sick for two weeks. Was it worth not having to quarantine and continue living separately for the time it would have taken for my wife's infection to pass? Eventually time will tell. Lingering health issues are still being discovered among those who have contracted the virus and now that I am over sixty, I fall into that high risk category. 

So I continue to walk that line between being safe and being so very over living in a pandemic. At school, I remain masked and continue to bore students with our labored reminders to keep theirs over their noses and mouths. If it's a tough sell for a sixty year old, then nine year olds have fallen off the interest scale when it comes to wearing a mask. 

And yet I stand out there by the gate each morning, welcoming kids to school and encouraging them to get their masks before they head inside for the day. Our school district, which had made a good-faith effort to keep everyone tested weekly a year ago, has shifted their focus to maintaining centers where anyone interested in being tested for COVID-19 can drop in for a swab poked into their nostril. 

If they're interested.