Yesterday I rented a lawn aerator. In spite of a mask mandate, only one other person was wearing a mask at the hardware store.
Pandemic Life is hard in so many ways but the category of Tribe is the one that challenges me most.
As I stood there in my Berner mask at the rental counter with maskless people hither and yonder, I felt a profound sense of aloneness.
These are not my people and this is not my place, I thought to myself.
Where, I wondered as I drove home, are my people? My place? My tribe?
Where, I wondered, is SAFETY?
And the voice that tries so hard to be kind, balanced, and inclusive was scolding me for thinking so poorly of these people, and trying to create a narrative that makes these policy-breaking, maskless people something other than selfish, horrible, stupid, careless idiots.
That voice, that scolding voice, is mine.
It is exhausting.
I am trying not to judge. I am trying so hard not to think terrible things. I am trying to see differences as deserving of at least respect, and to acknowledge that I do not have the corner on Truth.
But the reality is that I fail constantly.
188,000 Americans are dead because of Covid-19. That is Truth.
And masks and social distancing and other simple measures would have saved so many of those people.
I am exhausted arguing with myself about how and what to think about the actions of others in the face of a deadly virus. And I am tired of being exhausted by this effort.
My math looks like this: No mask = dead people.
There is nothing I can put into that equation that changes it for me. I try — but all I see are dead people and the broken hearts left in the wake of careless, maskless so-called freedom.
I yearn for people I can trust — people who care.
I miss my Tribe.
So much.