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Burst my bubble
Sunday. Yes it is. Almost half past June, too! I didn’t expect I’d get used to living in a pandemic world. My younger brother suggested that some people are cut out for this type of living. This morn- ing it feels as if that has happened to me— the getting used to it. I’m comfortable with a mask and I’m just fine speaking to people from a distance. I’m cool if the other people in the grocery store stay away from me. I’m just super beachy/peachy-keen when someone asks if they’re too close and I’m not afraid to tell them they are, sometimes. Actually, as the province opens up, I’m not sure I can handle being “close” to people who aren’t in my “bubble”. And, speaking of “bubbles”, what the heck happened to being in a “bubble”? Being “in a bubble” or “creating a bubble” was all the rage last year. Every once in a while someone mentions “bubble”, then they get that look on their face as if to say, “Y’all remember bubbles, right?” The people in my bubble are people who can relate to me, just the way I am. They know me. We’re close, but just close enough. I like bubbles.
If anything we’ve learned a whole lot of new words, and phrases in the last 15 months. “Pandemic” is a good word with which to start. I sorta, kinda knew what a “pandemic” was before the spring of 2020. It was a word I saw in history books and, occasionally, in sci-fi and/or horror novels. Who knew we’d be living in a pandemic world. Well, I suppose someone knew it was going to happen, sooner or later. Pandemic wasn’t on my GPS. As it turned out I had other things to deal with when we found out we were liv- ing in a pandemic. Because we are now liv- ing in pandemic times it’s important to know
all about “contact tracing”, especially if you happen to step out of your bubble. At first, I thought contact tracing was interesting, ex- citing and a bit mysterious. Well, until in December of 2020 LOML and I actually got a notification of a potential, low-risk exposure. We’d been contact traced. It wasn’t so exciting when it happened. It was kind of scary. What if we’d been more than “low-risk” exposed? We decided to dig deeper into our self-isolation and went on double-secret-self-isolation for 10 days. Every time one of us sneezed or sniffled (or farted), we joked about having “The Vid”, hoping we weren’t going to be that couple who recurved “the curve”. We weren’t those people, as it turned out. But by the end of 2020, both LOML and I were fluent in COVIDese. I had laughingly hoped I’d learn another language while in lock- down. I was thinking Italian, or Irish. But there we were pronouncing words like Hydrochloroquine and Remdesivir without hesitation or with a weird question- ing inflection at the end. We regularly punctuated our sentences with phrases like, “Of course, we were socially-distanced” and “I carry my own hand sanitizer”. I actually got tired of reassuring people with those phrases, but I found it was reassuring to hear it.
Somewhere near the ninth month someone re-birthed the phrase “herd immunity”. Oh, yeah, it wasn’t a new phrase, but most of us weren’t used to having it tossed around, and I sure didn’t like the implication of being in a herd of anything. Herd immunity felt like it couldn’t possibly apply to people. And, to me, herd immunity implies a great loss of life to get to the immune part. At least I remember learning as much in science class. It’s one of those phrases which makes me shiver when I hear it. I don’t think I was onboard to be a part of a herd immunity experiment and I sure as H E double does of Cootie Shots didn’t want to get involved in a Super-spreader to see if it worked, this herd immunity thing.
So, here we are. Each of us learning a new language. The language of PPEs, Community Spread, Respirators, Intubation, Isolation, being Asymptomatic, Essential Busi- ness, Online Learning and WFH. I read daily infection statistics, well, daily. But, I’ve telling myself I could have spent 15 months learning to knit. I could have worked out my Couch-to-5K problems by now. In- stead, I’m worried about the province opening up and I don’t want anyone to burst my bubble. Do I still have time to conjugate Italian few verbs? Will that scarf ever be a sweater?
I like my bubble. I think I’ll keep it.
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