I’m alone this Thanksgiving Day. Just ate a chicken roaster breast with sweet potato casserole, black-eyed peas, ice green tea and a slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Already 1,000 calories, and I skipped breakfast for this feast.
Really, I don’t mind spending a holiday alone. I’ve spent many holidays with the folks, so sitting here alone typing a blog reminds me of the days when the type of jobs I had meant sometimes I’d work a holiday. I was OK with it. Probably adopted a blue-collar work ethic from my dad who sometimes worked holidays for double time-and-a-half. Wow. I worked holidays but nothing more than regular pay. Often an employer would give me the next day off or a day of my choosing. That worked out fine.
I’m saying that the holidays in themselves aren’t so special to me. They are not Holy Days, and in my upbringing even those are suspect. Who’s creating these special dates when all of society is supposed to stop working just like that? I like work and working and never minded being called in to do a shift on ‘holidays.’
This year I chose to stay home because of the severe warnings by the federal center for disease control. They’re already predicting this Thanksgiving, the beginning of America’s usual extended month-long holiday season, to be the Mother of all Super Spreaders. So given my line of work, as a school teacher, I figure I very well could be exposed despite all of us wearing masks throughout the work day. My parents are elderly as are other relatives. I think it unwise to go with the hip travelers’ mantra heard on the news, “You gotta live your life,” when something bad could happen. It’s unlikely, maybe. But I’m siding with the other American mantra, “You never know.”
So far I’ve skipped a large family reunion this summer, Labor Day visit, and now Thanksgiving and more than likely Christmas. Not sure if I’m doing the right thing, that guilt trip also heard from travelers: What if this is the last time I ever see dear old ( ) again? But doctors would say I’m doing the right thing avoiding the elderly, crowds, indoor family gatherings, and this new one ‘sharing air.’ On such matters as a contagious and potentially deadly illness, I defer to doctors.
That said, I’m not afraid of the new virus, figure I could be an asymptomatic carrier, very likely have already come into contact with others who actually have the virus. I’m not worried about myself and my age group and younger plus those of us with relatively good health. But there are all those other people out there with all kinds of chronic illnesses, many which impact the lungs and breathing. Plus, medical experts haven’t figured out this virus yet. Some people who’ve survived COVID-19 have chronic health problems even involving their hearts.
Perfect 2020 vision
This year has been awful for everybody around the world. A fourth of our national workforce unable to find jobs. A quarter of all children in this country alone going without food. Millions of students unable to attend school or learn online. Tens of millions of families not knowing where to turn, how to live, what to do, where to go. It’s all due to the pandemic and mandated restrictions like closing businesses, yet only certain industries over others.
First, what we’re seeing, finally, is it’s not the virus that is the source of our problem, the lone problem shared with everyone else on the planet. It’s how our economic systems, national and global, work and then don’t work or won’t work when a monkey wrench is thrown in. Fine when there’s no pandemic. Financial ruin whenever a pandemic comes along. Pandemics occur, ushering in mega health crises. What shouldn’t happen is food, shelter, education and healthcare are removed along with jobs and income, especially during a relatively short cycle of a year or two.
The vaccine can’t arrive soon enough. Untested, still millions will roll up their sleeves for a shot, including me. I see it as my duty in this unprecedented time. Besides, wearing a face mask fogs my glasses. I literally cannot see most of the time. I’m walking through this era virtually blind and like everyone else have lost patience.
We just want our old lives back: when we didn’t have to think twice about hugging one another, visiting family for holidays and any reason, traveling, shaking hands, making a personal appearance because it leaves a lasting emotional impression lacking from a letter, photograph, email, phone call or online chat. But when we do live past this terrible time in our collective history, we best start contemplating how to take care of each other regardless of hardship. The year 2020 has shown us the things we miss when they’re taken away and our very human reactions, from petty to selfish, angry to depressed. By now we should be seeing the light at the end of the darkness. It’s visible to anyone who wants to see it. Whether you believe or not, the dawn of a new era awaits us.