#guess now i don't have to worry about getting a booster before christmas

[thorinkingoferebor]

i had covid very early on, then basically spent 1.5 years working from home and barely being social, another 6 months of heavy social isolation after my dad and now I go on ONE work trip, the first one since 2019, and it took me less than four days to catch it :)))))))))))))))))))

#text posts by thea #i'm so annoyed #especially because i wear my mask everywhere! #i was the only one on the eurostar #the only one on belgian public transport or in their supermarkets but I wore it! #and i still fucking caught it #uuuuugh #anyway #guess now i don't have to worry about getting a booster before christmas #got myself my own natural booster -.- #anyway i'm fine just flu like symptoms #thank god for vaccines because my first time around was so much worse #and i'm glad to be home again #being sick in a hotel is not great

[borgesbourgignon]

The catastrophic rise of omicron in my area has shattered the last week-and-a-half for me. At first, it was just something I heard about on the news somewhere. Then it exploded in Florida faster than even delta had. I fretted about the risk of last-minute Christmas shopping, running through Macy's like it was a nuclear waste site, and I was the only one wearing a mask in my family's Christmas Eve and Day celebrations.

It's hard to shake the feeling that people once again view me as a paranoid freak. It's especially hard when my own partner, usually the more panicky of us about health concerns, seems to feel similarly. They haven't said anything, and they're not disagreeing with me or dismissing me - just last week I talked them down from getting gas mask-looking things and buying fresh N95s instead. But I can sense it. Christ, maybe I am just paranoid.

It's weird to say this after almost two years, but it's never been clearer to me that COVID has changed me. I fear it may be permanent. As soon as I saw the cases jump past 5% for the first time in a couple of months, I stopped making plans with friends. It was sad, but at the same time, it was easy. Less so with family - always, for I can never truly shake them off even in normal times. I feebly tried to avoid hugs and physical contact, but I guess I've also changed in that I now accept it as inevitable. I don't welcome it. I just let it happen and try not to cringe so much. But just now, I declined my parents' invitation to spend New Years Eve with them and my abuelita. Having to go to the grocery store and pet supplies store tonight, New Years Eve Eve, makes that easier: I could catch it there, and I wouldn't want to risk spreading it to the older folks.

That's something that really has changed with omicron: I am now genuinely worried at the prospect of grocery shopping. I mean, I was also worried back when COVID first hit. We waited outside Wal-Mart for its 6 AM opening, and we got enough supplies to last us a month-and-a-half, naively hoping that the virus would subside by then. We relaxed after that, going a couple times a month. That's before the testing positivity rate vaulted to 29% in my county. I fully intend to get a ton of supplies tonight so we don't have to go again before the wave withdraws. We'll see if I'm wrong again. And I'm bringing my N95, I don't care that I'm boosted.

I guess that's one more thing I realized as I wrote this: I no longer feel safe with the vaccines, even after getting the booster. Granted, I was never reckless enough to visit nightclubs or other crowded indoor spaces. But I was confident enough that I went to Disney, after over a year of refusing invitations and declaring that I wouldn't catch a plague from a rat. I was at least okay enough that I felt no concern about casually hitting up Target for some munchies. Now, with another shot to reinforce me, I still don't feel like it's enough. I've read that it should be. But I don't feel it.

As I have admitted to loved ones with some sheepishness, my sense of risk assessment is completely shot. Omicron spreads like a motherfucker, BUT it doesn't seem as dangerous, BUT it seems to be just as rough for people without boosters as for completely unvaccinated people (one of my best friends can confirm that it sucks), BUT it doesn't seem all that lethal, BUT Florida's Department of Health is notorious for withholding data related to the state's COVID crisis, BUT ... and even knowing that I'm likely to be fine (heck, my sick unboosted friend calls it a "really really bad flu"), I still worry about infecting others and potentially getting the yet-unknown long-term effects of ever catching the virus. It's somehow worse than with delta. At least that one didn't have many breakthrough infections like this one.

So I slip back into my survival mode state from 2020, shunning company and taking measures that may be extreme even for my hypochondriac partner. And it feels normal. After a long time of insisting that wearing a mask and keeping as far away from other humans as possible didn't feel natural to me (and doing so anyway regardless of the irritation and inconvenience), it's now just what I do and who I am. You do something long enough and it just becomes like breathing.

I think that this should chill me. It doesn't.