In my craw

 Since early 2020, I have struggled with negotiating this world.

First, the whole "it's everywhere, it's on everything" where I would literally strip naked after walking in the door and then shower and wash my hair, and where I'd wash my hands after touching anything that had been outside my house.

Then the whole question of "mask or not mask" followed closely by 'leave the medical masks for medical personnel, make masks at home for yourself and for people who can't sew" (And I admit: at first, it felt kind of, I don't know, almost a bit like "do your part" or something, or like taking part in a scrap metal drive in WWII, but those feelings quickly evaporated as the governmental bodies continued to give bad advice and people locked hard and fast into very opposing positions).

Then the vaccines

Then the question of: when do I stop masking in class? I stuck it out longer than most of my colleagues; I finally dropped masking in fall 2022.

I only recently dropped masking in most stores. I would do so again if (a) I were going to be seeing someone who was actively doing chemo*, (b) there was another big spike here or a new variant of concern, or (c) I was with someone who asked me to (example: my mom is 86 and still masks in the small and often-crowded grocery she uses; I do too when I visit her)

(*of the two people I know doing chemo, one has since died, the other one is on some kind of a "maintenance regime" and they say they don't need me to mask around them at this point)

But I really did struggle with the decision. Most people dropped it before I did; any more I only see two or three people in a store in masks. 

And I admit, sometimes I feel bad about having dropped it, when I read some of the Discourse on it. 

The thing is: I'm gonna be open here. I find masking uncomfortable. In class, it restricted me psychologically in a weird way. On warm days it was also uncomfortable. And on days when my asthma was bothering me, I'd have to stop periodically and try to take deep breaths, and I could tell I got out of breath more easily.

And also: as the pandemic ebbed a bit, it had two other psychological effects on me:

- something like mild PTSD kicks in now if I put on a mask, it transports me back to mid 2020 when I was literally only leaving the house for absolute essentials and was fearful everyone I loved was going to die

- masking now when 98% of the rest of the people are not just reminds me of being that kid in school who always got ridiculed for having the wrong clothes; I feel like I stick out like the proverbial sore thumb and while intellectually I know "what do people think about you? They don't, actually" is true, emotionally I am trying VERY HARD to not look too 'different' and 'weird' because that's how you become a prey animals for the bullies. 

I probably should NOT read the Discourse, but frankly, like a lot of other people - well, part of it is I am trying to make sense of what happened these past three years, part of it is I am seeking guidance of how to go forward (When do I need the next booster? What happens as I age even more? Is there a new variant) so sometimes I read stuff that makes me feel slapped.

This thread (Metafilter) does it. Yes I know people on there are much more cautious and perhaps paranoid than I am. And there's also no shortage of people who want to position themselves as The Only Moral Person In This Mess and tell everyone else how Bad and Wrong they are. 

But it does.....kinda make me feel like I'm Bad, and that I am somehow killing people without even knowing it, because I now leave my house for Unnecessary reasons, and even worse, I often don't mask any more. 

But the one that made me go "nope, I'm out" was the comment that "If you accept that there is some large number people whose happiness at seeing loved ones, going out dancing etc. is worth the risk of an infectious disease harming a small number of people, "

followed by the rejoinder "The Ones Who Mask At Omelas" (reference to the famous short-story where the happiness of a peaceful city somehow depends on the abject misery of a child every generation) and.... I don't know.

I interpret the comment as "you should stay home as much as possible, down to curbside grocery pick up if you can, and don't go do fun things, because if you do, you are harming someone immunocompromised" and you know? My mom is 86. Gonna be 87 in May. I am ACUTELY aware - I think of it literally every time I wake up at 3 am and can't sleep - that I won't have her in my life forever, and you are saying I should forgo traveling to see her EVEN TAKING PRECAUTIONS because of a hypothetical person? 

It made me angry.

For one thing: I am not good at sussing out "invisible" rules. Never have been, which was why I attracted the attention of bullies and mean girls in school. If you want me to mask around you, TELL ME. You do not need to tell me why, I don't need your medical history. Just say "hey, do you have a mask on you? I'd be more comfortable if we were all masked" and I'd put it on. For you. For the other person. 

The other thing: my entire life I have made myself "small." I have kept my mouth mostly shut. I have said "sure that's fine" when the group I was with proposed going for Mexican food when I really didn't feel like it, and the restaurant they were picking had lots of food with some kind of ingredient that upset my stomach. Or I never pressed to go see the movie *I* wanted to see unless someone else said they wanted to see it first. And I'm at the point in my life where I've pushed my own wants (and sometimes, needs) to one side to humor other people that I'm worn out. So unless I have CLEAR evidence that my being unmasked at the Pruett's is going to harm someone else there, it irks me to be told I'm a bad person for not masking when I run in for five minutes to buy a jug of milk and a box of spinach. 

The thing is, this is kind of like all the levitical laws at this point: no matter how hard we try, ESPECIALLY as individuals, we'll never be perfect enough. We'll never eradicate COVID, even if we all mask forever and avoid public places forever. Because sadly, this b*stard disease has animal reservoirs, and we're not gonna get deer to mask up and we can't vaccinate every wild cat (Yes, I know, in some cases a veterinary vaccine is used, like with zoo big cats). We're never getting rid of it. And we can't "individual responsibility" our way out of that fact, and dangit, I am TIRED of being told all the failures of groups larger than me alone are somehow my individual responsibility to mitigate - this is the darn plastic straws thing all over again. 

Could we do better? Of course. We could have VASTLY improved ventilation in public buildings and that might actually be the only way out of 2000 people or whatever it is dying a week worldwide. But there's little will for it - hell, even on my campus, a lot of our "covid money" is going to cosmetic stuff that won't improve ventilation! And some small business owners probably can't afford better ventilation.

So we're stuck with this. And yes, it's bad. But I can't be a hermit (well, more than I already am) forever. I can't NOT see people I care about face to face. Yes I will mask if I am asked. If I have a respiratory thing I will stay home (We should have been doing that all along, and I wish sick-day policies were kinder across the board). But I'm not going to do something that is frankly kind of unpleasant for me, personally, in a world where no one else seems to care and where the potential of it doing any good is small and the potential of my unmasked self doing harm is perhaps smaller. 

Part of it is: I am kind of burned out on trying SO hard to be good, to walk on my knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting, to try to be extra kind, to give up my time and my wants and my money and everything - and to see the world be it's same horrible bad selfish evil self, and all my efforts are for naught. And masking forever in a world where at BEST I get funny looks for doing so seems like that writ large.

And I'm sorry. I'm sure at least one person will be offended by that. But I'm tired. I'm tired of trying to be good, for literally nothing: for seeing NO effect on the world of all my efforts. 

And still: if I am going to be around you and you ask me to mask for any reason, I will, without pushback or question. But I'm not going to do it just because some stranger on the internet is trying to persuade me that I'm a bad person otherwise. Because I'm becoming convinced there's no way any of us can be good people, no matter how much comfort in this sad old life we give up in the service of that.