Not a Wasted Word

Yesterday I woke up to a text from a teacher friend that the Oakland Coliseum site was opening for 1b tier appointments. As educators, we are in the 1b tier, which is just opening in California, so I was excited to see that a site was vaccinating teachers. She sent me all the important information, including a special code to use when I registered for an appointment.

When I first went to the site to see if I was eligible, I did not put in the code and the site told me I was not yet eligible. When I tried again with the code, I was allowed to look for an appointment. Of course there were none, so I didn’t have to think about whether or not I should actually try to book an appointment.

I texted my friend back and asked where she had gotten the code. Evidently it was making the rounds in the East Bay, where the vaccination site was. A friend had shared it, then the administration at her school, then it was on Facebook. There was conflicting information about which teachers could access the site. Some sources said only Alameda County teachers, others said anyone within 50 miles of the coliseum. Yet another source said anyone who works in education or child care in Alameda, San Mateo or Santa Clara counties could get vaccinated there, but it wasn’t clear if they had to LIVE in San Mateo County or WORK there. I live in San Francisco County but work in San Mateo County so that mattered for me. (I’m starting to wonder if it’s going to make getting vaccinated harder than it would have been.)

I decided not to use the code, since it wasn’t specifically sent to me, and I didn’t go back to try to book an appointment. I texted back and forth with my friend who very much wanted an appointment. She works in Alameda County, but won’t be going back to the classroom this year (she is a resource teacher who sees a lot of students in different classes so she can’t meet with them in person when they are in small cohorts). The state wants to prioritize teachers who are back in classrooms but I think it realizes it’s too hard to do that so it’s just not trying to. And ultimately we want everyone vaccinated, right?

I keep hearing that argument, that it’s okay if people are crossing state lines or fudging credentials to get vaccinated before there are supposed to, because ultimately we need to vaccinate everyone who is willing to get the shots. I don’t necessarily agree with that argument. If supplies weren’t so limited, and the roll out weren’t so delayed, I might think it made sense, but right now there are not nearly enough vaccines and some people should absolutely get them before others do. I don’t think jumping the line is the right thing to do, but I also don’t see the state or counties doing much to prevent those willing to flaunt eligibility guidelines either. Vaccination sites that are only supposed to serve certain zip codes don’t require proof of residency, and sites that are only supposed to vaccinate people over 65 don’t ask for proof of their age. I understand they don’t want to create barriers to vaccine access, but at some point it feels like they are inviting people to disregard the guidelines altogether, and just jump the line.

And with the disorganized and chaotic rollout, sometimes it’s hard to know when you’re jumping the line and when you’re just being shown where the line is. My friend who sent the code got vaccinated yesterday. The CTA (state-level teachers union) sent teachers in Alameda County a special link and she used it to make an appointment that same morning. She won’t be in the classroom until the fall, so technically she doesn’t need to be vaccinated now, but she was formally “invited.” I’m sure I would have done the same if I were her.

She keeps sending me information about sites in San Francisco where I can show up with my ID and a pay stub (showing I work for a school district) and get vaccinated, but when I try to find any information on these sites providing vaccines there is NOTHING. I’m not sure if the information is bogus or something I’m not supposed to know. I finally had to ask her to stop. I’m not going back to the classroom until mid-March, and that is only if we are back in the red tier, case-numbers wise. Even then it will only be two days a week for about two hours a day. I’m also 40 and in good health. A lot of teachers need to vaccinated before me, so I’m going to wait until the San Mateo County of Ed invites me to be vaccinated. I’m also registered with San Francisco to get updates on when I might be eligible here.

My husband absolutely does not think I should use a code a friend gave me to make an vaccination appointment. He doesn’t think the code was intended for me, since no one from my district, or county shared it with me. He doesn’t think I need to be vaccinated now, and I should wait my turn. We talked about it a lot on Tuesday, and I generally agreed with him. I know other teachers from my district made appointments at the coliseum (HR actually emailed us and told us that teachers from our district made appointments there, but did not share the code that actually allows you to make an appointment); that makes it even harder to not pursue it. “Just because other people do something, doesn’t make it okay to do,” my husband told me a million times yesterday. I don’t think he’s wrong. Still I wondered what he would do if he got the opportunity to be vaccinated before he felt he really should.

To both of our surprise, my husband got a call yesterday from a colleague saying she had vaccination access for him. Evidently 50 people in his department can be vaccinated, but there are more than 50 people so they are… I’m not quite sure what they are doing… Calling their friends in the department to see if they want to get vaccinated? My husband passed on the offer. He said he asked himself how he’d feel if it came out in the papers. Was it wrong for him to get the shot, when he’ll be working from home for the foreseeable, and it was offered by a friend on the phone? The answer, in his mind, was definitely yes, it would be wrong. He couldn’t defend himself to the public if he had to, so he didn’t do it.

My (other) friends think I should get the vaccine using whatever codes is being passed around by educators. They think I need to get it eventually so I might as well get it now. I don’t know, maybe they are right. If I could be certain that there will be doses left when it legitimately is my turn, I wouldn’t even be thinking about this (well, if my friend weren’t texting me all the time I wouldn’t be thinking about this). But I can’t be certain because all I hear from my district (via the county) is that there aren’t nearly enough to vaccinate all the educators, let alone all the food, agricultural, and grocery store workers, along with police and firefighters (also in the 1b tier that is just opening). They are saying it will be months before we can be vaccinated, and middle and high school teachers are their last priority (because the state guidelines say community spread has to be much lower to open classrooms for those age groups).

It’s so hard when the there are so few vaccines and the rollout is so disorganized and chaotic. Sometimes I wonder if by not using the code to get vaccinated now I’m missing my one good chance to get it at all. Nothing about how vaccine roll out has been going gives me faith that I will eventually be vaccinated if I just sit around a wait. I believe waiting is the morally correct choice, but I worry it’s not the prudent choice when the state is doing so little to ensure that vaccine roll out is happening in an ethically responsible way.

So, what would you do if you were offered access to the vaccine that maybe you technically qualified for, but that you couldn’t actually access without some information that was not formally shared with you? Would you use a friend’s tip and make yourself as appointment, knowing that everything else you put in the registration page was true, but that you wouldn’t be offered the vaccine without the code? Or would you wait until you were formally invited? I’d really love to hear your thoughts, because even though I told my friend to stop texting me tips on where I can get vaccinated right now, I’m sure these situations will keep occurring in the months while I wait to be formally invited. I’d really love some unbiased opinions on this, so I can navigate possible opportunities moving forward.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention (and I have now added it above) that the sites my friend says I can show up at with a pay stub are not official vaccinations sites for teachers. There is nothing online about them being available to teachers. And that is the case because… SF has not opened their vaccination sites to teachers yet. Teachers from my district can, and are (I’m on a text chain about it) making appointments because they live in San Mateo County and can do that. I cannot make an appointment there (without that code) because I live in San Francisco. I’m supposed to wait until 2/24 to try to get a vaccination appointment at the site that recently closed because of limited supply and now has an estimated back log of 24,000 appointments. So yeah, it’s all going to go great. Just another reason to love living in San Francisco.

My kids had a four day weekend (SFUSD takes off for Luna New Year). I worked Friday, but I get this coming week off. I know most schools don’t get a February break, but I like it. I always prefer more breaks during the year (and a shorter summer). Always.

{I think I would prefer year round school, honestly, but it will never happen so I don’t think too much about it.}

Of course it won’t be much of a “break” when my kids are in school and I’m with them all day, trying to make sure they learn something (or at least log into their zoom calls). It won’t be much of a break when so much of every day is the same as it would be if I weren’t on a break. But I was able to completely unplug from work for the long weekend and that felt lovely. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t open my work computer, or even think about work, for three whole days. It was so, so nice to have that. And so when I’m feeling frustrate that my break doesn’t feel like much of a break I’ll remember the work hiatus was this weekend and I’ll be grateful for that.

I honestly didn’t realize it had been two weeks since my last post. Things have been busy. My school district’s union agreed to return K-5 two mornings a week starting February 22nd. The middle schools will be returning when our county is in the red tier, as recommended by state guidelines (they are guessing that till happen in mid-March). There is absolutely no timeline for teachers to be vaccinated (we can be vaccinated but there aren’t enough vaccines so they are NOT vaccinated us). Right now they are hoping we’ll be vaccinated by early summer. Meanwhile SFUSD has been in the national news a lot because of it’s monumental failure to even come up with a plan. In fact, the city DA is suing the district over its lack of a plan. It’s crazy how much progress they’ve made since the law suit. It won’t be enough to actually open schools this year, but if they had been putting this recent energy toward returning at the beginning of the school year, it might have actually happened.

I had to submit my daughter’s middle school application on February 5th, and I have to admit, I feel like I fool for returning to SFUSD next year. This district is a disgrace and it’s clear that is not going to change in my children’s lifetimes. Families are leaving the city in droves, and even more are leaving the public school system for private and parochial schools (SF already has the highest rate of private school attendance in the nation). When California starts funding districts by their actual enrollment numbers (they are using 2019-20 enrollment numbers to fund the 2020-21 school year), SFUSD will be out so many MILLIONS of dollars. It’s going to be a shit show. I have never considered taking her to my district as much as I have this year.

I have been so busy with work lately; the amount of prep I’ve had has been overwhelming. I’m hoping I can get a couple weeks ahead in my planning this week, but I have giant assessments to score so that might not happen. The assessments need to be scored because second trimester ends two weeks after the break. Shelter in place started the second week of the third trimester last year which means it has almost been an entire academic year spent in distance learning. I used to think back to when we heard that we were not coming to school for two weeks (plus the spring break made it three weeks), and remember how insane it would have felt back then to know we wouldn’t be back for a whole year. But I can’t summon that mindset anymore. It’s been so long that I can’t really approximate how nuts it wouldn’t have seemed. I can remember how shocked I was that we would be out of school for two weeks, but I only remember it because I’ve thought about it so many times. I remember the story of feeling shocked, not the feeling of shock itself. Does that make sense? I guess a year of living through something you never fathomed could be a possibility will do that to you.

It’s late and I need to get to sleep because tomorrow I have some reluctant distance learners to get ready. I don’t think I’ve had a day off that my kids were in school for since all of this started. It will be a weird week indeed.

Thank you for your insights and comments on my last post. It helps to know that people are hearing me, and understand.

{Full disclosure, I did not intend to write another super bummer post, but it is what happened so, feel free to skip this one if you’re sick of my woe-is-me diatribes.}

I want to clarify that I am not gazing lustfully at those who are not following public health guidelines. I believe that everyone should make as many choices as they can to protect the health of the surrounding community and I am still okay making those choices. It’s hard, and yes it feels harder when I witness others flouting the guidelines by traveling (for fun) or meeting indoors with people outside their households. Luckily none of my friends are doing things like that, and I’m not on social media so I don’t see it much either.

But I am really frustrating that my kids won’t see the inside of a classroom all year. San Francisco and the Bay Area locked down fast and hard and that was supposed to make it possible for us to open back up later. But that never happened. Our numbers are crazier than they have ever been and we wasted the fall talking about how we’d return to classroom when numbers were better, even as all the experts warned the winter would be brutal. And then it came and it was brutal and now there is no going back. It feels like all the initial hurt was for nothing.

(And I know is wasn’t for nothing, and that fewer people have died in San Francisco than any other major urban center in the United States, but it does feel didn’t take advantage of our low numbers to make the right decisions – like returning kids to school, and instead opened restaurants and malls). And yes I know that all kids are in the same boat, except that actually, they are not. The private schools, and many charter schools, in the Bay Area have been open since September and tons of other districts across the country have been too. Only 1/4 of districts in the US have been teaching entirely online this school year (about 1/4 opened completely and around 1/2 returned with a hybrid set up in the fall). So actually, everyone is NOT in the same boat, not even in our neighborhood).

I don’t miss eating at restaurants or going to movie theaters. I don’t want to do most things that still aren’t allowed (except let my kids hang out inside with my parents and in-laws – that is really the only thing). Of the possible public offerings, I just want my kids in school. And I want to be in school teaching my own students.

I know this isn’t the popular opinion to have, but it’s mine. I’m tired. I’m tired of people picking and choosing the data that supports their point of view. I’m tired of people moving the goal posts. I’m tired of the union meeting where the one teacher talks about how it will never be safe to return to classroom until EVERYONE has been vaccinated, and talks shit about the families that travel, when she flew to the Midwest for the holidays herself (I guess she assumes she can do it safely, while others cannot?!). I am tired of another teacher talking shit about the district his wife works in, where they did go back (he thinks it is unconscionable) when he just admitted that he pulled his own middle schooler from our district and put him in his wife’s district so he could attend school in person. Sometimes it feels like everyone is a hypocrite and I just to go crawl in a hole.

Of course everyone is not a hypocrite but it’s easy to feel like they are when you can latch on to specific examples, especially when you have to sit in hours of union meetings with said examples listening to them spout their hypocrisy shamelessly.

I know my kids are, and will be, better off than the vast majority of students in their district. I know my own students will be fine in the long run too (and please don’t think I’m speaking about their learning Spanish online – of course I am upset that 15 months of their schooling will happen online). But that doesn’t negate how awful this year has been for them socially, emotionally, and academically, and how much they’ve lost while the people who were supposed to be making the hard decisions in their best interest sat around doing a whole lot of nothing.

Yes, this is ultimately about how tired I am of trying to make my students, and my own kids, not hate school and therefore the majority of most days. I’m tired of hearing how I’m supposed to let go of academic expectations for my students, to meet them where they are and help them feel better, even when those same voices admit there is really nothing I can do. I’m tired of telling my son to please go back to sit in front of his iPad when doing that makes him miserable. I’m tired of telling my daughter I know how hard it is to lose the entire last year at her elementary school to distance learning when I have no idea how hard that must be. I also don’t know how I’m going to tell her it will be okay to start middle school online next year.

I’m tired of helping my kids during every free moment of the day and then working until 1 or 2am every night so I can make up for the time I lost during the day. I’m tired of managing my son’s tantrums literally dozens of times a day (every time a zoom class starts, every time he has to do an assignment, every time he has to eat a “real” meal, every time he can’t do what he wants right that minute). I’m tired of counting how much screen time they get every day and freaking out about what it’s doing to them. I’m tired of participating in my son’s entire marital arts zoom because otherwise he won’t do it (we took three months off but we had to start again). I’m tired of fighting over every single meal and every single snack (yes we have created simple, very generous guidelines but they still fight them every. single day). I’m just tired.

I’m tired of staring at a screen all day. I didn’t choose that kind of job, and I get paid way worse than people who do those kinds of jobs! I’m tired of trying to find new and novel ways to engage my students over zoom when there just aren’t any. I’m tired of making making all my teaching materials distance learning accessible when it takes forever and the results are never what I want them to be. I’m tired of not being able to take a day off, because there are no subs so I still have to create videos and independent work and grade it so what is the point? I’m tired of not sleeping well (getting to wake up at 7:30a, doesn’t matter much if I got to bed at 2am and can’t fall asleep until 3 or 4am). I’m tired of showing up to one paltry martial arts zoom a week and hating it, which is what I told myself I had to do if I didn’t quit (I took a 7 month break from martial arts because I hate the zoom classes, but at this point it feels like I have to go to them or just leave it entirely). I’m tired of watching my husband be so sad every single day.

I’m tired of people telling me vaccines are going to make things better by spring when my FIL (75yo) got an email from Kaiser Northern California just yesterday saying he wouldn’t be offered a vaccine for months, and SF has no vaccination sites for people over 65 that my FIL can access (but people from outside the city can! Yay?!) Or when the Country Office of Education emailed us this week to tell us they don’t anticipating having vaccines for teachers until the summer.

I’m tired. I’m tired of sitting in this holding pattern waiting for something to change when nothing seems to. I’m tired. I’m so very, very tired.

And yes, I know opening schools is not going to fix all of this. I know this. But schools are my whole life. School is the job I’m paid to do as a teacher and the job I’m entrusted to do right now as a parent. And I’m unhappy and my kids are unhappy and my students are unhappy and it’s hard not to think that going back to school, even with masks on and far away from each other, wouldn’t alleviate a lot of that unhappiness.

I don’t know. Maybe I can’t even see the forest for the trees anymore. I just wish we had options and right now there just aren’t any.

Thanks for the support and kind words on my last post. The issue was resolved to my satisfaction and I am not longer super stressed when I meet with that class. I did end up talking with them about the panic attack, briefly, and we also talked about how quickly you can lose control of a video once you’ve sent it to someone else.

The last few weeks have been… okay. Some days I feel almost good and others I feel I’m staring down a long tunnel with no light at the end of it. I know there is a light at the end of it, but I can’t see it yet. (On the days when I feel almost good, I’m not bothered by the lack of light at the end of the tunnel – I’m pretty sure hormone fluctuations are the only difference).

As far as living my life, I’m still hitting that wall. Everything feels harder than it used to. I’m struggling to stay on top of my planning, prepping and grading. I’m struggling to show up with the energy and enthusiasm required to keep students engaged enough to get the work done. I’m just… struggling. Even on the good days I am struggling.

And everyone else in my life is struggling too. My husband is miserable. My kids have more meltdowns every day. It’s harder and harder to get them to stay on a zoom call or finish an online assignment. My students at school are struggling too. Significantly more students are getting Fs this trimester, and their weekly emotional check ins show how distressed and unhappy they are. We’re coming up on a full year of this and everyone I know is struggling. Everyone is miserable, and they will be miserable until something changes. And right now, nothing will change for us for a long, long time.

I’m also realizing that my life, the locked down quarantine life, is not being lived by a LOT of people. I always knew different areas, and people in those areas, were handling this differently, but I don’t think I quite realized how differently, and for how long. I have to say, the more I hear about other people’s lives, where their kids go to school in person and they still have a cleaning service come, and they still play sports and attend organized activities… the harder it is for me look down the barrel of so many months more of this isolation and sadness. I don’t even have faith my kids will be back in their classrooms in the fall, and other people’s kids have been there this whole year.

It must be nice to have some semblance of the life you used to live. It must be nice to feel like things are getting better.

I have to say, when I thought everyone was sacrificing together it made it easier for me to make those sacrifices myself. But now, it’s not so easy anymore. I guess I just wish we had more options, but we don’t. California is still so locked down, even as we come out of the winter shelter-in-place orders. And now that we are coming out of the shelter-in-place orders our numbers will stay so high that school districts won’t go back and our kids will be stuck at home for the second half of the school year. It’s a fucking travesty and California should be ashamed. We have the FIFTH LARGEST ECONOMY IN THE WORLD and the vast majority of our public school students will not see the inside of a classroom this school year, they won’t see the inside of a classroom for FIFTEEN MONTHS. Maybe longer.

But what can we do except keep on keeping on. Every day we get through it and then we wake up to get through another day. While other people are living their lives, or some semblance of their lives, we’re still stuck in this groundhog day of isolation and sadness. And yes, with vaccinations things will get better, but it’s going to be a slow, slow march to better. So, so slow. It’s hard to remember there is a light at the end of the tunnel when you you’ve been in the dark so long you can’t even see a pinprick of its presence.

Do you feel like your still stuck in quarantine while other people are getting on with their lives? Are you hitting a wall?

On Wednesday I had a panic attack. During one of my zoom classes. Out of nowhere my heart rate spiked and I went pale. My vision was covered in spots and I couldn’t see. It happened so fast, and I was so disoriented that I didn’t think to turn off my video or just end the zoom call. A couple kids unmuted to ask how I felt and I told them not well and asked for a minute. I went off screen to sit down and I was so disoriented I thought maybe I was dreaming. Once my breathing calmed a little I went back to my computer and tried to keep teaching but my vision was still so bad that after 30 seconds I told them I didn’t feel well and had to go.

It took about 20 minutes for me to stop sweating and feeling so, so cold. It took about an hour for me to feel relatively sure I could teach my 11:50am class, though I was still exhausted and shaky.

I’m really not sure what triggered the panic attack. It was my 9am class and I was definitely nervous about the inauguration that was starting at noon on the other side of the country. But I wasn’t thinking about that at all during my class. It literally came out of nowhere.

Wednesday sucked. I kept thinking of how awful it all must have looked on the zoom and how bad I felt for my students, who were clearly freaked out. I kept wondering if it was going to happen when I logged on again at 11:50pm.

Then this morning in my advisory class the first thing out of one of my students mouth is, Ms. — are you okay? My friend said you were really sick in 1st period yesterday! Then he admitted that actually his friend had sent him a video that he took of me having a panic attack.

I was honestly so shocked I didn’t know what to say. I had worried briefly that a student might have recorded the incident but so many of them had been concerned that I put it out of my mind. I guess that was naive.

It sounds like the video was only shared via text message. But the student who received the video is at my normal middle school and the student who sent the video is at the other middle school (the one where I only have two classes) so probably a lot if kids saw it. Who knows if they just kept forwarding it to more people. At this point I’m just hoping it hasn’t been posted on social media.

The administration at the school of the student who sent it is looking into it. They already called the parents of the student who told me he received the video (evidently the mom had overheard him telling me about it on the zoom call and was mortified). Evidently both her 7th (in my advisory) and 8th grader (in one of my Spanish classes) were sent the video.

So yeah, it’s been a really shitty week and I kind of want to give the fuck up. I had a panic attack and a student recorded it and sent it to a bunch of students and maybe posted it on social media. I’m not quite sure how to bounce back from that.

I’m glad tomorrow is Friday. I just want to crawl into a hole.

In December I set up a surprise visit with my husband’s best friend. We met up at a playground in the East Bay and the kids played while the adults talked. My husband has not seen one friend in person since the pandemic started and his mental health has taken a toll. He was so happy to see his friend, and was very thankful that I set up the visit.

During that visit my husband’s friend invited us out on his boat. Since being outside with masks on is something we are doing, we accepted the invitation. We went out this past Sunday and it was amazing.

The weather up here has been warm. REALLY warm. Unseasonably warm. Actually it’s been warm by any-time-of-year standards in SF. We usually get a heatwave like this in February, but not in January. So while it has been amazing to have temperatures in the 70s, it’s also terrifying to think what it portends for the future.

Clear, warm days on the bay are a rarity so we really lucked out. There was so little wind (very rare here) that we had to motor all of the way there and some of the way back. We did put up the sails for a little bit, but mostly we motored. My daughter has been going to sailing camp for two summers now and she really had a great time.

I got a lot of photos. I have to say, I love San Francisco a lot more when I’m a little ways away, marveling at the skyline.

I wrote a really bummer post earlier this week. I’ve been struggling with a level of anxiety I am not used to and I haven’t been managing it very well. Everything felt like way too much and I was collapsing under the weight of it.

But I’m not going to post that because we all have enough bummer stuff going on in our lives and in our minds and no one needs a dose of my unique brand of sadness.

All that to say I’m not doing great. But I can’t really point to anything specific in my life that is worse than it was before. We’re all living through the nightmare that is the current political situation. We’re all 10 months into this horrifying pandemic. We’re all managing our upturned lives with as much grace as we can manage (though it certainly seems some people’s lives are a lot less upturned).

And as is usually the case, I’m fairing all these hardships better that most. I really have no reason to be struggling any more than anyone else is.

Maybe I’m not – maybe we’re all having this hard a time. I wouldn’t be surprised.

I’ve abandoned any hope of the vaccine making things easier anytime soon. California is 43rd in distributing the vaccine per capita (this might surprise people but California has a long history of not taking advantage of it’s resources (we are still ranked 48th in spending per student in the country when our economy is the FIFTH LARGEST IN THE WORLD)). So yeah, California likes to think it’s the shit, but we fuck plenty of shit up and it looks like we’re fucking this up too. (We thought we were smarter than this virus and now we’re learning that is absolutely not the case).

It’s true that teachers are included in the next phase of vaccine distribution but so are people over 75, agricultural and food processing workers, grocery story employees and others, so basically a shit ton of people. I can’t imagine I’ll be getting the call anytime soon (I have no idea how or from whom I will get the call – I live in a different city and county than the district I teach in so maybe that will complicate things?) Even if I do get it relatively soon, no on in my family will be vaccinated so I could still give it to them.

I have read some articles that some teachers don’t want to return even if they have been vaccinated (because they could bring the virus home to their families). If that is the case, then I hope the state is identifying the districts whose unions are willing to go back, and only offering it to them, before they vaccinate any teachers. Teachers who are NOT going back to the classroom should NOT be vaccinated before others. The last thing this profession needs is a bunch of us getting vaccinated and then still refusing to return to the classroom, and I can totally see that happening because no one knows WHAT they are doing and I absolutely believe districts would take advantage of the line-jumping even if they knew their teachers wouldn’t go back.

I will obviously get vaccinated, but I honestly don’t think it will be offered to me before the summer. Our district is going back as soon as we’re in the red again (second highest covid-risk tier), but with way our numbers are right I doubt that will be any time before late March or early April. Maybe not until May. My kids will not be going back at all this year.

There really is no end in sight. I mean we know at this point things will look more normal, eventually, but it could be a really, really long time from now before they do. If kids can’t get vaccinated, and people who are vaccinated can pass the virus along to others, it will be a really, really long time before things look normal again.

It’s been 10 months of this and I have to admit, I am hitting the wall. Hard.

(And this is the post I put up in PLACE of the downer post.)

How are you doing these days? Do you think the vaccine is going to make things better any time soon?

Thank you for not ripping me apart in the comments. I’m sure many of you said nothing because you were so angry. I appreciate that. I recognize that I shouldn’t have put that out there, because every time someone talks about making a choice that is not in line with current health guidelines, they help other people make those same choices.

I know that is true because when I read Lag Liv’s post yesterday, I definitely thought, if they can do it, why can’t we?

I regret putting it out there. It feels important to say that. I know that damage has been done, but I wanted to apologize. Especially since at this point we don’t think we’re going to send them. It’s just too stressful. I haven’t told my parents yet. That part will be hard…

It’s New Years Eve. I keep forgetting that. We have nothing planned. We picked up fried chicken sandwiches on the way home from a socially distanced meet up at a playground with my husband’s friend. I set it up – it is the first time he has met up with a friend in person since this started. We’ll eat the fried chicken and watch Captain Marvel (my kids stalled out on the Marvel movie marathon at Infinity War, so this is probably the last one). We may let the kids stay up for the NY ball drop but probably not. I may have a drink tonight, and I’ll stay up until midnight, but only because I can’t sleep if I go to sleep earlier.

And that is our New Year’s. We don’t usually do much so it doesn’t feel that hard to not do much.

I hope you all have a happy and healthy start to the new year.

THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED/UPDATED.

I guess I should have expected that last post to generate an intense comment section. In the moment I was just trying to write out the situation in an attempt to figure out how I felt. I was also hoping for some advice on how to manage the feelings as I knew others had already dealt with a situation that was relatively new to me. And I did get lots of good advice on that. Thank you for that.

It’s understandable that we all have a lot of feelings about other people’s actions right now, because other people’s action affect everyone, including us. Full stop. Most of us have never been a part of a public health movement where simple day-to-day actions can affect others in such negative ways. Many of us have never been in a situation where our personal choices are a matter of public health. This is new terrain for all of us and with the botched federal response and confusing, inconsistent public health messaging, it’s not surprising that our nation has not come together in combating this virus.

I am not trying to make explanations for anyone. I believe people should be making certain choices and I am dismayed, and sometimes angry, that they are not making them. But I am not a perfect adherent myself, and I didn’t write that post trying to paint myself as such. California currently has a stay-at-home order that I do not follow when I meet with my kids’ friends at the playground. I wasn’t following that same order when I met with my parents on their patio to open presents on Christmas Eve.

And if my kids spend this weekend at my parents’ house, inside and unmasked for 36 hours, we will not be following even the current CDC guidelines.

And this is where I’ve deleted the rest of this post, the parts that were previously published. I understand people are angry that I posted it at all, I just felt disingenuous not mentioning it again, since I already mentioned it earlier. My previous post was not meant to put me, or my choices, on a pedestal, and it felt like that is what happened, indirectly, in the comment section. It felt dishonest for me to not mention that I am not perfect in my choices either. That I am tired and sad and managing the expectations of others who should be more cautious that we are, but are not.

I’m not asking anyone to talk me out of it. I’m not asking you to tell me it’s okay. I’m not trying to convince people to make bad choices. I’m just trying to be honest. But maybe, in this circumstance, that was the wrong inclination. I know I was furious about the op-ed in the NYT days before Thanksgiving that listed all the direct and indirect contacts the family had, and the risks of them passing on the virus and then ending with, but we’re going to go anyway! I remember thinking that it was so hard to convince my parents to eat outside, at separate tables, and then they were going to read this and think it’s okay to eat inside! I recognize this is a form of that. Others might be teetering, trying to make the right choice, and I put something like this out there, suggesting that there are exceptions to the rules. But there aren’t. And I recognize that. It just felt so dishonest, since I had already mentioned the possible plan, to pretend like I had never mentioned it at all.

I still don’t know what we’re going to do. I outlined my reasoning for why we’re considering it below, in a response to a comment. Please feel free to excoriate me. That is only fair after the comment section on my last post. I will leave this post up for 24 hours so people can say what they need to say to me, then I will take it down.

And I’ll leave this thread link up, because it still feels important.

A 🧵 on COVID Living Room Spread:

Saturday:

– Older, out of the house brother wants to visit younger siblings.

Mom says "get a test on the way, if you are negative you can come."

– Rapid test is (-), family spends a day together inside, laughing, playing, eating.

1/

— Dara Kass, MD (@darakass) December 29, 2020

I mentioned in my last post that my cousin was getting together with her parents (both in their 70s) who flew in to visit them, and her brother and his wife, all inside without masks today. When I FTed them after I wrote that post, I mentioned to my aunt that I thought my parents were feeling lonely and sad today and she said, “well it wont’ last forever.” And it really rubbed me the wrong way, because if it won’t last forever, couldn’t she have waited to see her family? It would be SO MUCH SAFER for me to spend Christmas inside my parents’ house, which is a 30 minute drive away, than for them to spend it with their family after a two flights (and multiple hours in THREE airports). Why do they get to spend Christmas all together, and we don’t?

They aren’t stupid people. These are not conspiracy theorist who don’t believe the virus is real. They have been taking precautions and following health guidelines. My one cousin (the brother who spent the evening there with his wife) is an oncologist! Surely he understands the risks. Surely he knows they shouldn’t be visiting like that.

I have to admit, I can’t stop thinking about it and I’m not sure how to process it. I love this extended family, and I’m not angry at them, I just don’t know how to get over the fact that they are all together for Christmas and we are not. I understand it’s different people making different choices with the same information, but I can’t seem to reconcile it in a way that allows me to just let it go and move on with my life. Their actions don’t affect me except to remind me of what I don’t get to do and make me feel sadder for not doing it, and it feels like their choices shouldn’t matter so much to me. But for some reason, they do.

I am lucky that I don’t have to watch a lot of people who are close to me making such divergent choices and living life in a way that feels more normal. I’m lucky that I haven’t had to manage these feelings much, if at all. But now that I’m having them I’m not quite sure what to do with them. Do I tell myself they are making the wrong choices and hope they are all okay (which I absolutely hope for, I harbor no ill will)? I don’t see how I can admit their choices are acceptable and still be okay with my own choices because then I’d be abstaining from things that make me happy for no reason at all… How do I reconcile knowing that they are not ignorant fools (because they are not) with the choices they are making and simultaneously the choices my family is making?

I’m putting it out there because I thought maybe some of you have had more experience with this and might advice me on how to just let it go and get on with my life. I’m really at a loss and I don’t know to be sitting with these feelings (that I can’t even name yet) for the rest of the break.