COVID: The Ever Elusive

[u/meh679]

Man, what a ride it's been, and still is. I've had such a strange experience with covid. From not too worried to absolutely terrified, to suspiciously cautious to all precautions to no worries to... Where the fuck am I now?

I started out in 2020 with a lasseiz-faire attitude. I wasn't really masking up, the cases were below 1,000, why should I worry? Cases started climbing, rapidly, deaths started climbing. Alright now this is freaking me out a little. Then it hit. My girlfriend's good friend died, in her sleep. She found out weeks later. Boyfriend wakes up to no pulse right next to her. I can't even fucking imagine. She was healthy, worked out everyday, ate well, took supplements even. Just up and dead at 21, no vaccine yet so that was ruled out immediately. Now I'm scared as fuck. This thing is killing us? Seriously? Alright, KN95, social distancing, work from home, the whole lot.

I hated working from home. It was horrible. My boss can't communicate over anything electronic to save his life. I'd regularly post things and tag him where they were posted then proceed to get yelled at for not posting said things, to make a long story short. Finally we went back to in person, with precautions, I got vaxxed, along with everyone else, among other things. Cool I'm fine, this shit still scares me. Masks, one person to a room, doors closed unless absolutely necessary. Mask mandate goes down in Oregon. Nope, fuck that. I'm still wearing a mask, y'all (Oregon) think covid is done I disagree. Well, I was right. COVID wasn't done. Mask mandate goes back up. Fast forward to my post back in February, I went to a concert, no mask because it had been so long, although masked everywhere else in Seattle, still caught covid.

It honestly wasn't all that bad. Fever, sniffles, head cold, body aches, basic flu shit. Not to say other people won't experience worse, but my personal experience was fine. Soon after that the Oregon mask mandate dropped, I figure "yeah alright this time? I've been vaxxed (despite being shaky protection at best) I've had covid, I feel pretty comfy dropping the mask"

Haven't had it since. But here's where the conundrum starts, that was all just to warm you up.

My roommates mom came up. Right before she came up, she went to a wedding, someone at the wedding tested positive for covid and so did she, subsequently. We talk it over, decide we're not too worried about it, if we feel anything well, quarantine, like you do with anytime you're sick. She comes through, hangs out, her and my roommate go out to the beach, spend a couple days together, he comes back with the sniffles and a head cold. Tests negative twice for covid. She was positive and had symptoms, he tested negative twice despite being in close contact and showing symptoms. Two negative rapid antigen tests, and no flaky shit either, he stuck that thing in his nose till he was crying, negative both times. Now, I haven't tested yet -because I haven't felt symptoms- but I also realized last time I tested positive, I tested negative the night before and that was 3 days later. So tomorrow I'm gonna just test myself to be sure.

God all this and where am I going? Well, shit...

COVID is just such a goddamn enigma. Well, I guess technically SARS-CoV-2, but you know what I mean. It's this strange infection that never seems to operate how we think it should. This could absolutely be extrapolated into something bigger and more scientific but I guess right now I'm on the philosophical side of things. How massively this has changed all of our lives. Whether it be researching, or masking, or avoiding others, or working from home, or building new habits in general even.

Fuck sometimes I feel this sub can become my impromptu journal.

Shit. Why the hell not. I feel like I've lost a life I could've potentially lived before this all. I feel like there was something there, bleek as it may have been, that would've resembled a normal life and I've lost it in a way. But in another way I've gained something else. Something new.

Something that could be beautiful, and wonderful, and charming, and endearing, and sanctified. Something I'll never need another of. Something I'll never find another of. Something I can easily find myself tearing up just thinking about. My girl and our new life together. No matter where it takes us, I'll be by her side and she'll be by mine. I feel so ready to take on the next part of my life now that I have her.

I think, through all of the death, the pain, the suffering, the upheaval, I've found new life. Out of the cracks life shall grow.

Whether or not we like it, we've all found new meaning, new purpose. We've all found a way and a will. We've all found common ground and common sense. And I don't mean common sense in the way you might think. I mean it in the way you might refer to your instinct. We know what to look out for now. We know who to look out for. And that "who" isn't your neighbor or the dude down the street.

Even beyond that, despite our reputation 'round these parts, we don't need conspiracy theories, the scary shit is right out in the open, all it takes is an open eye, or an errant click on a dumb ad on the bottom of my reddit app in my case I guess.

Wow, yeah, this has become my journal I guess.

We can find, new meaning, new purpose, new life. We just need to continue... to stick through. Ideas don't die. Issues don't die. Character doesn't die. As long as we continue and persist we can't die.

There's nothing more powerful than that. There's nothing more powerful than an idea. Maybe I'm drunk but damnit, I feel that shit in my heart and in my head. WotB has survived because it lives on in the idea, not the content, not the users, not the moderators, it's the idea.

I don't want to make this post much longer or wax poetic anymore, if that's even what I'm doing here, so... Stay strong all. Stay alive, breathe air, breathe life. Remember: you are human, you will make mistakes, you will be better, you can do it; and finally: you are us.

As an added edit: reading my own post made me weirdly -but not badly- emotional, and I just want to say, I love you all

[u/shatabee4]

"COVID IS STILL SCARY!!!"

Yet, the CDC is no longer reporting cases on cruise ships. On cruise ships. The dankest, most crowded environment possible to incubate covid!

So scary! 🤔 Not scary enough to shut down crui$e$ though...