Epiphany

When I was a teenager, I was rightfully paranoid about getting pregnant. After a few pregnancy scares in my mid-teens, I went straight, and from then on it was condoms, condoms, condoms. I went on the pill in my late teens. But I couldn’t quite believe that taking these little pills was really a trustworthy way to avoid pregnancy. I could SEE condoms. So I still insisted, condoms, condoms, condoms. It took me years to come around to the realization that these little pills were known to have well over 90% efficacy; and then I finally laid off the condoms, when in trustworthy relationships.

Something similar has been going on this year. All year it’s been mask, mask, mask. Then I get two shots in the arm. Can I really believe that those two little shots mean I’m protected, and protected from infecting others? I can’t actually see the shots doing anything. I can SEE masks, and I can obviously see staying home doing nothing. So even since my long awaited V-Day, I’ve been careful, careful, careful. No indoor dining! And trips that I’d been looking forward to… should I really be running around the country, to NC, to NYC, to ME, weaving school even?

Maggie and I had wanted to celebrate our birthday together in NYC. I was more fine with the idea when it was distant, but now it’s coming up. She wants to plan indoor things. I told her I only wanted to do outdoor things. She said then it wasn’t worth planning anything. And it was OK, if I wasn’t comfortable coming down, it was fine, she honestly wasn’t mad. Not at me.

Then I’m like, when am I going to be OK with this? What threshold of cases will make it all OK? It hit me when I saw a headline today about the Canadian border *possibly* reopening soon. If it reopened tomorrow, would I go to my long-missed Canadian haunts? With my prevailing attitude of fear – no, I wouldn’t. Dammit, what’s it gonna take, Tytania? When will you live again? I’ll tell you when. At some arbitrary point. Someday you will just start to feel OK doing shit again.

Why not make that point now?

It’s on.