I am jealous if you are NOT worried about Covid. What a treat. I don’t have that luxury, I’m a mom of kids still at home. The people NOT worried about Covid at all are either:
1. Too old to remember having a sick kid
2. Haven’t been to the ER in awhile
Because I’m not scared of Covid, I’m scared of sleepless nights – because that’s what sickness is when you are a parent or part of a family in one home. As a parent, sickness = sleepless nights and gross bodily fluids everywhere. Everywhere. I’m scared of any sickness but I’m especially scared of any sickness that could go thru my whole family like we are actually passing around a football filled with diarrhea.
See I’m not old enough to have forgotten the year my daughter sat up in my bed, turned her head, then threw up directly on my face. I still remember being in a 2 a.m. daze in the shower washing vomit chunks out of my ear. I literally had to turn my head sideways and clean puke from my hair and ear canal while my husband changed the bedding – because not all kids handle sickness the same. Some kids are jerks that never, ever hit a trash can or toilet.
Actually the global point this year is just that: not all humans handle sickness the same. We’ve seen this year that some people do get over Covid, and some people die. The point most people seem to be missing is I don’t want to deal with sickness – period. I know I cant avoid it forever, I know it’s coming around again, but as a mother and a family of four, I’m just not dumb enough to actively go seeking it out by pretending it’s not that bad. And if one of my beloved, trusted doctors personally tells me a mask will lower my chances of sickness, by God I’m wearing nine of them and keeping my kids a full yard stick away from me as I swat it around.
Just last Christmas break we spent the days before Christmas in an out of town ER with our 2nd child. Eventually that stomach bug reached our first child, then me – and it was the worst I have felt in DECADES. Last year’s Christmas stomach surprise was so bad that I knew THE SECOND I felt it – it did not belong in my body. My stomach felt that bug and radioed my brain faster than a NASA astronaut with a helmet leak. My brain received the signal and told me then to buckle up and grab the bulk box of puke bags. Last year, three out of four of us had to go to the ER for medicine just to make it STOP. And that’s only one fun family sickness story. That one is totally separate than the vomit in the ear and totally separate from the ER doctor dressed as Santa years before. Point being, I’ve got enough stories of survival, I don’t want anymore.
So yes America, I know the Covid numbers. I know the media blows it out of proportion, I know my family isn’t in the high risk category. But, I’ve also talked to friends and family as they suffered this year from Covid and I don’t care how many people do get over it – before they got over it, they sounded like they were knock knock knocking on Heaven’s door and it did not sound good.
Thankfully, most people I know personally did make it to the other side of Covid – but many in the world did not, just as we lose people each year to all sorts of sicknesses. It’s all sad. It’s terrible. And I don’t want any of it IF I can avoid it. So congratulations if you’re too old to remember the worst of the sleepless nights with kids. Or enjoy these moments if you’re too young to have experienced the 3 a.m. ER trip with your kid who smells like his pee and your sweat. I’m still young enough and smart enough to know if it’s goin around – there’s a chance it’s comin’ for me and my family. Most sicknesses are like lice, I don’t have to have it to know I don’t want it. And yes, it will pass, but it won’t be pleasant and it’s going to cancel your plans.
I support your rights to not wear a mask. I support the belief in conspiracy theories and questions of vaccines. But more than that, I support going on with my life and my plans without early morning ER trips or chunks of vomit in my ear. When I say I don’t want to get sick, I mean it – I don’t want the flu, the measles, rubella, Covid – none of it, cause we’ve already had most of it and it all sucks.
Here’s the thing about “worries”. With worries, it does help to speak about them, let it out, voice your concerns, get help. However if you’re not worried about something, you’re good. You don’t have to tell us, you don’t have to brag or start a debate – the great thing about not “being worried” is that you can go on not being worried. Everyone has a right to their own emotions and their own reasons for those emotions. Humans rarely have any idea what another human has suffered through that sets off anothers unique set of worries. If you’re not worried but someone else is, how about instead of trying to change their minds you try to understand their point of view. Any breathing sickness still stresses me out because I vividly remember trying to get a one year old to sit nightly with a nebulizer blowing medicine into her sick and growing lungs. It was traumatizing and none of us want to go back.
I’m happy this year has led so many people to better consider their personal hygiene. I’m happy it’s raised political questions and got people talking, but it seems the citizens speaking loudest are the ones without the young or elderly at home. I want to let the people actively caretaking right now be the voices that get heard. Better yet, if you haven’t had to wipe up crap lately, maybe stop talking crap? And if you haven’t truly been puked on lately how about you keep your thought-vomit inside also? The rest of us just want to stay dry from mucus, snot, and feces for one whole season and that shouldn’t be too much to ask for.
My opinion is that after witnessing the “public” again while running some holiday errands I decided the mask may be something I just adopt as an everyday necessity. Actually, at this point I don’t think an everyday Hazmat suit is out of the question. I saw a woman talking to herself while braiding Christmas ribbon from the street into her hair while sitting on the sidewalk and a man walking to his car in a tank top who needed to ask either Santa or Mrs. Claus for a bra. When in society, the public made me realize I don’t know what most people have, but I do know I don’t want to catch it. Any of it.
So you’re not worried, great. Silence is golden. I also wish it was contagious.
Johnna Nicole Crawford 