This is a journal of my thoughts and feelings during the pandemic of COVID-19. Written on February 4th & 14th, 2022.
Who knew there would be a part 18 of this series. With Covid numbers and spread still very high I guess that means this series lives on.
It’s been days of the Trucker Protests, the “freedom convoy” it’s called. I really don’t understand how any of it is related to freedom. To their claim of being oppressed and shouting for freedom I would answer back, “Who’s freedom?”.
Certainly not freedom for those who are vulnerable, those with loved ones in care settings, those with children in schools, those whose businesses have had to close due to outbreaks. Vaccine mandates and Covid protocols are freedom for those people.
There were Swastikas and Confederate flags flown in my home city of Ottawa. I never thought I would live to see those hate symbols waved in my city. It is shocking and scary to see, what is the world coming to?
There is power in community and protest, why waste it on such an unworthy fight? Fight for income inequality, worker rights, free mental health care, housing for all, for LGBTQ+ rights and representation, action on global warming, march against racism and the exploitation of people across the world. Seriously the list goes on and on. But to use it for this? It’s truly disheartening.
Meanwhile, Omicron has spread rapidly to every corner of our community and our world with no real indication in slowing or going away and yet apparently we’re ready to “get back to normal” and “learn to live with the virus”. Stores have had to close due to lack of staff because everyone got sick. Hospitals are crammed and short of staff. Schools are closed or are dealing with outbreaks.
Life lately feels like living in some sort of drama series, the kind where you laugh or roll your eyes because “real” people wouldn’t act that way, or not all of those things could happen. It is truly surreal and terrifying, what next?
My husband and I struggle to understand how so many people have gone through this and basically either think the whole thing is a total hoax and not real, or that it is “just the flu”, when the rest of us have lived through (and continue to) some tremendously scary years praying for our safety and for the safety of our loved ones.
I have to turn off my phone, look away from the news being fed to me on Facebook. Bury my head in my hands, and breath, and pray for a better tomorrow.
Trudeau has just invoked the Emergencies Act. In a few weeks most Covid protocols will be lifted, leaving us with only mask mandates. One small protection against the wave of virus.
Let me ask, how do we go back to normal now? Have the last two years just been some sort of nightmare we are supposed to collectively wake up from and forget about?
We can get rid of all the vaccine mandates and restrictions, but that won’t make the virus go away. We can say and pretend all we want that the pandemic is over, it won’t make it so.
35,000 Covid deaths in Canada, 920,000 Covid deaths in the US, 5.8 million Covid deaths worldwide. Each one of those numbers was a whole person, a living being with friends and family members. After weddings and funerals have been cancelled, proms and graduation ceremonies, Christmases, and baby showers, how can we simply go back to normal? I don’t know about you, but I do not know how to time travel. Because that is what it would take to go back to normal.
I’m turning 27 in a couple weeks, my third Covid birthday.
Somehow we will find our way through this friends. I don’t know how, but someday we will be through it and looking back on these days.
Write soon,
Hannah B.L.
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