“Maybe one day we won’t be thinking about COVID all the time.”

I wanted to talk today about COVID again because it’s reared its angry head in our lives again. I’m watching numbers that positivity rates have been going up in our area. My mom called me last night to tell me that she tested positive yesterday and I know that COVID isn’t necessarily a big deal. Testing positive isn’t necessarily a big deal. My parents are both triple vaccinated. My dad just had his, his second booster. But it just sucks when it, it comes close again. I had just seen my mom this weekend. We — my parents live up, up north. And so we had actually driven up. And then up near them, drove back down with my parents to watch my son’s soccer game and then drove back. So spent four hours in the car with my parents on Saturday. So now there’s that anxiety again of exposure. Worrying about “I’m a little stuffy this morning. Is it allergies? Is it something more?” I know that I’ve been triple vaccinated as well, but haven’t had COVID after being vaccinated. Makes — still makes me feel more apprehensive. I know that most people — that COVID is kind of here in that most people do just fine with it. But I’ve also had — I think that I come from a biased spot that my experience with COVID was not great. That I still feel like a year later, I haven’t returned to, to the level of health, to the level of fitness, the level of energy that I had before. And I’m sure there’s many factors that go into that. And then the experience we had with my sister-in-law who was on a ventilator and on ECMO, and we didn’t think was going to make it. It definitely makes me stress more with it. And I also feel like, maybe I’ve talked about it before, in the beginning there was a clear path. You knew what to do. Now I feel like, well, I’ve been exposed, but I don’t think I’m supposed to do anything different, but I feel like I should do something different. That, you know, that was pretty direct exposure. And I know vaccinations decrease intensity of illness but they’re not perfect in that certainly can still catch, catch it. And I don’t want to expose anybody else but we also have to live our lives and it just sucks all around. I feel for my parents that they’ve gone two years without it. And now, bam. Sooner or later, I guess it gets everybody. My parents have been very cautious throughout. They actually told me when I saw them this weekend, that they had gone to church for the first time without their masks the Sunday before. So it’s such a, a bitter pill. Right now, Mom feels fairly good, just a little bit, some runny nose and a mild fever and so far, my dad doesn’t have any, any symptoms. And hopefully myself and our family will stay symptom-free. Maybe one day we won’t be thinking about COVID all the time.