2020 Reflections Pt 2

Then it was my birthday. I met up with a dear friend to go camping in Oklahoma, where we partook of a $100 bottle of speyside scotch. We talked about our faiths (he had lost his) and I struggled to fathom the types of people who would claim to be Christian and yet were unwilling to inconvenience their lives in any significant way that might save the lives of those in their community. Questions of faith, ones in which I am forced to confront my own beliefs and reckon with their inadequacies, these are things which I appreciate.

I had recently taken a test to try to get my doctorate before I turned 30. No. I was not speaking to my father, but I went to his (well, technically the family's) lake house for my birthday weekend with my podcast team and my sister. When my blood mother was in charge, the rules were much the same, but the micromanagement was notably different. We kept it cleaner than we found it, as usual. In any case, I was very stressed throughout the weekend and had a small breakdown among my friends, which was graciously tolerated with apologies.

Following my birthday weekend, well, what else has changed? That girl I had told that I liked? She claimed to be anti-mask, and said that I need not be so pro-mask just because I was a medical student. Beyond simply being a medical student, the simple oath that we both swore to prevent harm should have kept a mask on both our faces, but needless to say, my affections for her all but ceased immediately.

Then July happened. Then August. Then September. October. November. With each month, more deaths were listed, and less people seemed to care. When holidays came, I reaffirmed that I would not be present for gatherings of human bodies. Need I remind anyone that this is completely reasonable and sane, and objections to such require significant qualifications to be considered otherwise. But of course, family pushed through, and now my father and stepmother and her family all have this virus infecting their bodies. As of yet, we lack the knowledge concerning how it will affect their lungs and the rest of their bodies in the future. As of the most recent update, my father is still in denial about being infected at all.

When siblings went to family Christmas, were exposed to Sars-Cov-2, and then returned back to the place where I live with my mother, who is in an age group which is at greater risk, I was displeased. That, of course, is a mild way to put it. They casually mentioned being exposed to people who later tested positive for the disease. They remained in living areas of the house as we tried to continue functioning as if a deadly virus were not in our midst. This of course ended when I finally moved out to one of my mother's Airbnb's in Canton. This, of course is white privilege at play. I have a safe unoccupied place to visit to isolate from the virus with many modern amenities and no significant fear of the virus.