– Journal entry during quarantine –

Covid,

I followed by your rules for more than a year and the second I let my guard down, you chose to strike. I don’t blame myself but I am having a hard time with it all.

I did what I thought was right and what health leaders told me to do. I wore my mask when I felt appropriate, I got my vaccines, I did everything I could to prevent this. I did too many to count news stories on COVID and its impact and even in practicing what I preached, I fell victim to thinking this was somewhat over. Where do we even go from here? Nearly two years too long.

You took away time with my family, time in my hometown, and the holiday. As I try to wrap my head around it all and its unfairness, I get angry. I’m sick of this.

When is enough for you, covid? At a certain point, we can’t all just freeze our lives. We have to move on and move forward.

Even as I sit here trying to gather my thoughts and wrap my mind around this all, I feel like I have no place to talk (or write). Hundreds of thousands of lives lost, impacted, and then so many frontline workers, giving their lives – I can’t imagine.

Honestly, it’s not until having the virus that I feel like I can really see and feel the severity of it. The aching head pain, body aches that I’ve never experienced and a temperature that felt debilitating, all of this, and I’m considered a lucky one.

This is a message to say I’m with you all impacted. I’m confused, I’m angry and wondering when enough is enough.

I want to move on after my 10 days of quarantine, but I can’t help going into 2022 with fear, concern, and doubt.

If there’s anything we can all relate on, it’s that we’re all trying to navigate this. One day, we will be able to say we beat this.

I don’t have the answers, I don’t know what to do anymore, but I pray a better year is ahead.  Remember to be kind through this.