Blue-Footed Musings

Twitter asked, “What’s your best advice for young adults?”

My best advice for young adults is to find a way to forgive yourself for your mistakes. This might not seem like a pressing issue when you’re young, but as you grow older and your mistakes accrue, it can become one. The sooner you learn to deal with guilt and regret, the better off you’ll be.

First, remember that everyone makes mistakes. “Life is so easy and all the answers are so obvious!” said no human ever. Forge a path to forgiveness and keep it open. Formalize or ritualize the process, if necessary. Focus on fixing the mistakes that you can, making amends where possible, and taking whatever life lessons you can learn from those mistakes. Then let the mistakes and all of their attendant feelings go–officially and permanently–and never allow anyone to continue to beat you up over them, not even yourself. And last, do the same for other people. Forgive them, and do what you can to help them along their path to redemption. A society that doesn’t foster redemption not only creates unhappy people but also gives its worst offenders no incentive to do better. Life will never be easy, but it can be made to be less difficult if we all work to make it that way.

Every January I like to look over the blog posts of the previous year and highlight one post for each month as a review of the year. 2021 was quite an experience, huh? Well, let’s review and see.

January: If any month ought to have a positive message, it’s January. The message that I have chosen from last January still speaks to me because I often feel like I go through my life trying to take up as little space as possible and apologizing whenever I brush up against the boundaries of my tiny sphere. But, what I really ought to do is to create a whole new, expansive space for myself, even (and especially) if that means dinging the fabric of the Universe.

February: For this month I chose another positive message, in this case from a book review. Ernest Cline’s Ready Player Two was a disappointment in some respects, but it contained a quote that I still think about occasionally, especially in conjunction with my opinions about Helen Keller’s unusual upbringing. Just imagine how great the world would be if we all tried to make life better for each other. America needs a good, strong dose of this mentality right now.

[L]ife is like an extremely difficult, horribly unbalanced videogame. . . . Your body is your avatar, and you spawn in a random geographic location, at a random moment in human history, surrounded by a random group of people, and then you have to try to survive for as long as you can. . . . Some people play the game for a hundred years without ever figuring out that it’s a game, or that there is a way to win it. To win the videogame of life you just have to try to make the experience of being forced to play it as pleasant as possible, for yourself, and for all the other players you encounter in your travels. . . . [I]f everyone played the game to win, it’d be a lot more fun for everyone. (Ready Player Two, 2/12/2021)

March: March was an emotionally painful month, so I chose a post about that.

Though the virus had already spread to America by January of 2020, it wasn’t until mid-March, give or take a few days, that it became real for most of us. It’s been a year since. Even if the media weren’t talking about this grim anniversary, and even if I hadn’t noted the particular day that we started our lockdown, I think I’d know that it had been a year. It feels like a year. It feels like time for the kind of grieving that comes with the first anniversary of a tragic event…. (Sadness and Hope, 3/14/2021)

April: In April, I wrote a joking post about my supposed “life philosophy.” There was a lot of truth in it, because all good jokes are based on truth, and the ludicrousness of it has made me more conscientious about finishing tasks.

My life philosophy, according to my actions: If a task will take many hours of hard work, slave over it long enough to get within sight of the finish line, but not over it, then stop and do not start again except under duress. If a task will take only a few minutes, put it off forever. (Philosophy, 4/23/2021)

May: For May I chose an angry post about the CDC’s poor decision-making. I still cannot believe how badly they’re handling this pandemic.

The CDC announced shortly before I got my second dose of vaccine that vaccinated people no longer had to wear masks. I was a little cheered by the announcement. I mean, hooray for normalcy! And it’s great to know that vaccinated people are unlikely to spread the virus. But I was also a little dismayed, and the more time I have to think about it and see the way people are reacting, the more dismayed I become. So I’m going to share an updated version of the journal entry that I wrote about the announcement at the time it was made, because I need to get these feelings off my chest…. (I Just Gotta Say…, 5/23/2021)

June: I wasn’t sure what to choose for June, so I picked a post about something that the kids said, because the kids are so much fun.

When it comes to hobbies, there are, I think, roughly three types of people in this world…(Hobbies, 6/17/2021)

July: Every part of 2021 was overshadowed by Covid, and this post from June strikes at the heart of what is so hard about living through a pandemic. It’s the uncertainties that get you.

Marshall got his first dose of Coronavirus vaccine a few days after he became eligible and he got his his second dose in due course. We had, I think, always assumed that we would vaccinate him, but we still gave it a great deal of thought and worried occasionally over the decision before all was said and done. Because it’s an experimental vaccine for a virus that is generally not as hard on youngsters as it is on adults, it was hard to say yes to the vaccine, because what if? But it was also hard to say no, because what if? And it’s hard having a kid who is still too young to be vaccinated, because what if? I am so sick of the what-ifs! Life is so much harder when it seems like every decision is fraught with peril. (Because What If?, 7/28/2021)

August: For August I chose a post about finally seeing my parents after a long time apart. Maybe things are a little bleak right now, but at least we had that time during the summer to live a semi-normal life. What could be better than spending time with family, playing games, picking berries, making jokes, and just generally enjoying each other’s company?

We brought some of our family games with us. My father even played a few rounds of Stinker and Five Crowns with us, which was awesome, because normally he’s not a big one for games, particularly not in the evening when he is tired. He was just as good at Stinker as I had thought he’d be. But, it was my husband’s entry for the category of breakfast cereal slogans that was the most memorable. It was “Doo doo that sunrise!” After that round, every player who had the same selection of letters also incorporated “doo doo” into their answer….(Our Vacation, 8/3/2021)

September: In September I found out that an old friend had died. It still hits me hard every time I’m reminded that he’s gone.

“Life it seems to fade way, drifting further every day…” Those are the first two lines of Metallica’s Fade to Black. I heard it on the car radio the other day, and it made me think of my old friend Phil. He’s been on my mind a lot lately, because I found out recently that he died from cancer earlier this month….(Gone Too Soon, 9/25/2021)

October: The post that I chose to represent this month is about flowers. I discovered some real beauties in 2021, and this one was one of my favorites.

It’s a good thing I was hunting so carefully for interesting things in the woods last week or I might have walked right past this charming wildflower.

November: My husband did a lot of work around the house in 2o21, and one thing he did that was particularly nice was to fix the front door. It looks great or, as we like to say, posh.

Have I mentioned how posh the front door of my house is looking these days? My husband recently repainted it. It used to be red, and now it’s black. Far from paying homage to the Rolling Stones, we were never happy with the old shade of red. The new black matches the window shutters, and it helps to distinguish our house from the neighbor’s (she recently painted her door red). Our new family joke is that black doors are “posh doors.” Now, whenever we see a black door, we say, “Oooh, that’s a posh door.”… (What’s Up Today, 11/7/2021)

December: There was a noticeable lack of Christmas spirit in the world in December of 2021. I mustered just enough of it to write an extra Christmas post as a favor to my friend. It turned out to be a gift to myself, too, because I wouldn’t have written about this favorite Christmas tradition otherwise.

…I’m going to tell you about a silly Christmas tradition that my father and I have. One Christmastime, back when I still lived with my parents, we were talking about O Holy Night, a song that we all liked. I said, “I bet Pavarotti sings that one well.” Not long after that conversation, my Mom bought a Christmas Pavarotti CD. That CD got a lot of play, because Pavarotti did indeed sing the song well…. (Sing It Like Pavarotti, 12/23/2021)

Now 2021 is over. We are already more than a week into 2022. Calendar units are arbitrary, and time doesn’t pause between them, so there’s no distinct dividing line between the events of last year and this year. Still, I’d feel a lot better if everyone who is here with us in 2022 were to take a long, hard look back at 2021 and try to learn something from it. I mean, it was certainly a “teachable moment” in the history of mankind. So I guess that’s my New Year’s wish: may everyone learn something valuable from the difficulties of 2021 and incorporate those lessons into 2022, creating a better year for all of us.

• Today was a snow day for the children. They played outside in the snow. Livia built a snowman. Good.
• I had my annual work review. My boss said she was happy with my work. I got a raise. Good.
• The School Superintendent sent us an e-mail with a link to a memo from the Department of Health. The document began with an acknowledgement that Covid cases are rising and that children make up a significant proportion of new cases. So what are they going to do about it? Are they they going to ask for better masks? Use more testing? Go to a hybrid model? Allow some kids to attend remotely? Keep the kids in “stable pods?” Have a week or two of distance learning to give the surge a chance to ebb? Of course not. They’re slashing the quarantine requirements instead. That will certainly keep more kids and teachers in school…along with more Covid. Not good!

School has already been cancelled for tomorrow. Livia came home with a full backpack, because she’d been told to bring all her school stuff home with her just in case. Quelle surprise.

• My Covid test came back negative. That’s good, I guess, though I would like to have had a simple explanation for nearly losing consciousness yesterday.
• Meanwhile, the schools are already having problems with staffing. Today we got word that they’re not 100% sure that they can staff all of the schools tomorrow. I bet they’re hoping that the approaching storm will be really bad so that they’ll have weather as an excuse for closing the schools on Friday. If they’re smart, they’ll tell everyone to bring their books and computers home at the end of the day tomorrow, just in case they need to shift to distance learning for a while.

Earlier this morning, I got so dizzy and headachy that I had to stop working. These symptoms might just be another round of the inner-ear problem that I’ve had in the past. But they are also symptoms of Covid, and because I have a runny nose, too, I have scheduled myself a Covid test.

How did I manage to find a test? A miracle, I guess. When I first tried to schedule an appointment this morning, every local testing site was completely booked up for the week. So I checked the other state testing sites. Except for a handful of Saturday appointments, there were no tests available anywhere until Sunday. I went back to schedule a Saturday appointment, and suddenly there was a testing site with open slots for every day this week, including today. I took a noon appointment.

The symptoms have subsided somewhat, and the bagel (that I’ve been slowly eating to quell my nausea) has helped. I no longer feel like I’m going to throw up and/or pass out, which is good, because I have to hit the road soon to make my appointment. My husband is going to drive, though. Every time I start to think that the headache is gone, I get a stab of pain through my eye, and if the vertigo were to return, I’d be unable to drive at all. Honestly, I doubt it’s Covid, but I almost hope that it is. Sometimes you don’t care which Devil is biting you as long as you know which one it is.

I try not to rant on the blog, but sometimes I just have to. Here is the rant that I wrote today.

I am mind-boggled over the tra-la-la attitude everyone seems to have about returning to work and school tomorrow. Transmission rates of Omicron are so high that anyone who goes to work or school is likely to catch it. But everyone else in this country seems to be perfectly OK with that. What happened to “flatten the curve”? Has anyone even looked at the curve lately?

The experts say that Omicron is different, but I’m not sure how much to trust them. For one thing, they’re basing their opinions on evidence from other countries that are smaller and that have different vaccination profiles and that aren’t even necessarily through their waves yet. Even if the variant is really milder, as it seems to be, a certain percentage of people will still have bad cases, not to mention that Delta is still out there, too. What happened to “everything counts in large amounts”? What happened to protecting the vulnerable? Have we just given up on all the ideas that guided us previously?

It’s so hard for me to judge, because we are getting mixed messages. Experts are saying that Omicron’s not so bad, because hospitalizations are barely up, even as hospitals all over the country are screaming, “We’re full! Help! Help!” Experts are also saying, “You’ll all be fine if you’re vaccinated and boosted!” even as we read every day about how many people are not vaccinated and/or boosted. They also neglect to mention that even the vaccinated could potentially get long-haul Covid. Has everyone forgotten about long-haul Covid?

Now, with many hospitals on the cusp of being overwhelmed, and with still large numbers of unvaccinated people out there, we are about to send everyone out to catch Covid at once. That’s like the dumbest, most irresponsible science experiment of all time. I want no part of it, but by law I am supposed to send my kids to school tomorrow.

I’m not sure what to do. The four of us are vaccinated and boosted to the extent possible. We will most likely be fine. So we should probably just proceed as normal. And yet, I can’t help but to keep returning to the idea that it’s stupid to expose everyone all at once to a disease that we’ve gone out of our way to avoid for two years and without being sure exactly how this is all going to play out and without extra protections for the people who might not be safe. Maybe we are all going to catch Omicron eventually, but we should at least try to stagger the cases more. So I am tempted to keep my kids home for the week, knowing that there is a very good chance that the schools will close soon due to staffing problems, freeing me from the problem of how to proceed in following weeks.

The question is now very pressing: will I send my kids to school tomorrow? I’m not sure. Probably? All I know is that I’m worn out from having to make this decision over and over and over. The variables are a little different every time, but the problem is always the same. We never have quite enough information, so the decision feels like a crap-shoot every time. Nobody should have to feel like they’re gambling when it comes to their family’s health and welfare. It was bad enough before, back when most people at least pretended to care, and it’s worse now that everyone seems to have thrown in the towel. Ugh!