BC And AC

 Somewhere in there, we just waltzed past two years of being stuck in this. Stuck in masks. Stuck in hand sanitizer stations. Stuck in looking suspiciously at anyone's nose and mouth they dare to expose. Two years ago this past week, a fifth grader came to school complaining that "they" had cancelled the championship game of his basketball league. By the end of that day we had all packed up and headed home, without any certainty about how and when we might return.

Those first few weeks were an ugly revelation. Rationing toilet paper? Endless discussions about what to binge next - food or television? Internalizing six foot distance? Having everything delivered to your house? 

Except toilet paper. 

The life we are currently living skews much closer to "normal" than that. The acceptance of millions of deaths, however, does not feel normal. These past two years have had elements of an extinction event. Somewhat early on, Stephen King was at pains to say that his book The Stand, telling the tale of a superflu that wiped out most of the human race was not prophecy. It was an allegory. Or was it a handbook, of sorts? 

Meanwhile, hospitalization rates and new cases have been pushed off the front page. Every so often a new variant will come along to remind us of the gray zone in which we find ourselves. People are still dying. By the hundreds, and even thousands daily here in the United States. From the disease that has become standard operating procedure. 

You need to have an ID to buy liquor. You need a license to operate a motor vehicle. Still we have people across this great land of ours who want to argue about having proof of vaccination. Vaccination against the deadly disease that continues to kill men women and children every day. Recently many school districts in our area rescinded their mask mandates. Ours was not one of them. Now in addition to the regular reminders about wearing a mask properly instead of as a chinstrap, I am having periodic debates with ten year olds about those policies and the decisions around them. 

The memories I have of life before the lockdown are filtered through the past two years of flinching every time I see a crowd on television or the odd feeling of getting away with something by eating in a sit-down restaurant. Will it be over soon? Don't hold your breath.