Rain at last

 I'm not sure where this will fit into the larger themes of the blog.  I admit I'm not sure what the larger themes of the blog are yet.  But as someone that has tried to squeeze all the uncertainty possible out of my life over the past few years, I'm taking the opportunity to embrace the uncertain.  I'm trying to focus on the process rather than the outcome in the hopes that all the wise people are right and the outcome will take care of itself.  We will see.

The pandemic has been a particularly tough time for me and I imagine for people that think like me.  I generally don't do well with uncertainty (squeeze, remember?) and these past 20 months have been nothing if not uncertain.  Will i get sick?  If i do, will I survive?  Can I protect my family, can I protect myself?  It's truly been a time for wild abandonment.  

So on some level, I think I understand people the protest mask mandates and vaccine requirements.  The uncertainty is crushing or it can be and everyone reacts to that pressure differently.  For some people, like myself, I cling to what I can control.  I can wear a mask, I can get a shot.  And those actions make the uncertainty more bearable.  But other people look at it from the other side; the masks are not 100% effective, the vaccines are not 100% effective so neither represents relief from the gnawing doubt.  The only relief from doubt that is available is a firm stance that none of it matters so why do it.  At least in that position, you have a little certainty.  you know that you will not do these things.  you know that whatever your risk for contracting the disease is, it has remained the same.  And while you wait for your unlucky lottery number to pop, you get to enjoy your life as you used to.  

There is comfort in that and until I wrote this, I hadn't fully appreciated it.  Don't misunderstand, I'm still not happy about it.  I want to get back to normal as much as the next person and, from where I'm sitting, the biggest reason we haven't is the inability to face cold reality by so many of my country-people.  This pandemic could be fading in our collective memories, it could be turning into nothing worse than seasonal flu as so many have wrongly claimed.  But it's not and it's not because we have too many people unwilling to put their big boy and big girl pants on and do what's best for everyone else and not just what makes them happy in the moment.