Back to Normal?

Maybe it's appropriate that my last published post was about the pandemic more than a year and this post brings things full circle in a whole new way. I feel like I am in a "can't win" scenario. The following post rambles a bit-it was way more organized in my head-but the words needed to come out. 

As my mind spins in circles with the start of the school year rapidly approaching, I keep asking myself why I am so constantly upset about the premise of heading back into my classroom and sending my own children back into their classrooms. It's actually something I had a lot of time to think about behind the wheel as I drove to and from Omaha for soccer with Camden. I think I finally arrived at an answer. 

I cannot fathom another loss. I have had enough over the past year and even the last few years. I cannot fathom losing my own child who is not old enough to be vaccinated. I cannot fathom losing a student from one of my classes. I cannot fathom one of my children losing a friend. I cannot fathom losing a family member. I feel like it will break me. I am feeling pretty fragile. 

I am an optimistic person by nature but this pandemic has me feeling like the world's biggest pessimist. This pandemic feels like it will never end and while so many people in the world around us are shouting-forget it, we're going back to normal-so many more never lived to see today. I am not ready for the new normal to be hospitals constantly overloaded. I am not ready to just accept preventable death NOT being prevented as the new normal. What I am ready for is doing anything and everything in my power to keep kids alive and healthy. If that means wearing a mask, so be it. I don't want to, literally have ZERO desire to wear a mask but this is not about what I WANT. It is about keeping kids SAFE. 

I simply cannot handle any more loss. I have spent the summer deeply mourning the loss of my dad. Summer was our time. The first time he came out was only for 2 weeks and we knew that just wasn't long enough. The next trip 2 years later was for 2 months and even that didn't feel long enough. He joined us on vacation and led the kids on some crazy adventures. He never missed an opportunity to go to the pool. I think about him every time we go. He would have loved the new pool. He was looking forward to the new pool. He was excited about the lazy river. How much did my dad enjoy the pool pass I purchased for him when he came? More than once he rode his bike to the pool on a hot day just to jump in to cool off then leave and bike home. He was one of a kind. It broke my heart to know that he wouldn't live to see the new pool finished. On the day he passed, we drove by the pool on the way to the funeral home. They were filling it for the first time. I am not over that loss; I will probably never get over that loss but the weight of more grief piled on top of that right now is like pouring acid into an open wound.

I will never understand how we have made the choice to send kids to school without masks when we are dealing with a virus mutation that is more contagious with more kids being hospitalized every day.  We cannot simply pretend that the pandemic is over because we are sick of it. Plenty of kids are sick of going to school by March or even December but we make them keep going because they need it. We still need masks in schools even if we are sick of them. Getting rid of masks in school when the CDC and AAP say we need them is a decision that I will never understand. I am sick of these "freedom" arguments. Guess what, you don't have the freedom to kill another person. You don't have the freedom to harm another person. You don't have the freedom to endanger the lives of others. In the context of these three things outside of Covid...they are crimes. There are literally laws against them. Someone decided that masks were a political issue but they simply are not. They are a health and human safety issue. 

I end by asking one thing...how would you feel knowing that you gave Covid to someone who died or had to live with a debilitating condition for the rest of their life simply because you want the "freedom" to not wear a mask in their presence? 

I hope that I am wrong, that we will get through the year without issue but only time will tell and I really wish we were being proactive rather than reactive.