The month of April was marked by COVID. The short version is the Wee Dictator had an outbreak at school and had to quarantine, and then I got it. Everyone is fine now—I was the only one who got it, and I didn’t have a severe case. I basically did what I normally did when I am not feeling well and it worked. Ultimately, I didn’t think it was COVID until there was a push for everyone to get tested who had any symptoms and I decided to get a test to be safe.
I didn’t find out I had it until I was nearing the end, so I have the guilt of “did I spread it to anyone?” when I didn’t know I had it. Its mainly more of a psychological hit than a physical one to be honest. I still had several days of trying to isolate, and when the wee dictator said “I miss you Mommy!” I felt terrible. My few days of isolation also left me nostalgic—I was craving anime series I watched in high school/college, as well as the 90’s X-men cartoon. There was a little voice in my head saying there was probably a reason I shouldn’t be chowing down on chocolate that got ignored.
Until now, we have been lucky. This was the first time we had to quarantine or get tested since the pandemic started. The people I know who got it were able to fully recover, and for that I am grateful. As far as the pandemic, things have been improving—numbers of cases have been going down, places have been opening up, and I felt I could start doing things I enjoyed again—and wham! My illness came with the hard lesson that lower cases doesn’t mean its gone, its just spreading at a lower rate. Until more people get the jab we won’t really be back to normal. COVID is spreading to younger populations, so while the death count and serious illness are going down they are not gone.
Shameful that it took me more than a year into the pandemic to truly grasp there is no going back to the way things were. There were goals I was working toward, a routine that I liked before the pandemic that I have to accept I am not going back to. At the same time, missing those things feels selfish, because I know people have lost loved ones and livelihoods.
This last month with all of us quarantining I haven’t gotten as much done as I wanted to. I am telling myself if there was a time to be kind to myself catching COVID is one of them. I feel like I am just getting back into my good habits. For the month of May I am setting a goal of 2 posts a week. I want to bring back the third Monday writing, although this month it will probably be a prayer to Brigid I wrote as opposed to a fiction scene. I am also going to bump my planned topic in my Journey to Paganism series and talk about pagan prayer.
Stay safe everyone. Get the COVID jab if you have not already, because vaccination is the way out.