It’s been 15 days since I cleared my throat only to find nothing to clear. Just a dry, unproductive cough. Thats when I knew it had finally happened. Almost four years. I so fucking ashamed of myself.

Just let me vent. I’m just going to write this all out and hit post without reading it over. Sorry for typos and nonsequiturs. Aside from my partner, y’all are some of the only people who would understand.

How I got it isn’t a mystery to me. I’m a teacher. The viral load in my classroom is somewhere between an Italian hospital in March 2020 and a Stuckey’s restaurant in rural Kansas any time of the year. I’ve been trying not to blame myself, but I know I slipped up in my masking / handwashing / prevention protocols somewhere.

I don’t have an air filtration system available. When my students leave for another class I open the exterior windows and door to try to draft the air in my room. Ten minutes later I’ll go into the attached storage room to eat my lunch since I can’t leave the building to eat in my car. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s what I have. 14-18 days ago I must have forgotten to open the windows. Maybe I didn’t wait longer enough before taking off my mask. If I’m being charitable to myself, the viral load in my room was probably just too much. Hell, it might not have even mattered that I had an n95 on because half of my 25 students were hacking their lungs all day.

I went back to school this Monday. My students were so confused. It’s diffficult fielding their questions when all the answers are just me explaining that COVID is not normal and there is still a pandemic.

“How could you have gotten it if you wear a mask all the time?”

“Why are you wearing a mask if you have it now?”

“Why is it taking so long for you to get better?”

Each one of my students, their parents, their family members has had COVID multiple times. They’re elementary students. They literally cannot remember a world without this pandemic. It’s a common part of life that everyone tells them if fine and normal. Everyday I act as a reminder to them that something is not right. One my students got mad yesterday that I’m still wearing a mask now. I had to send them out to the counselor. They came back some minutes later and said, “I’m sorry. I know it’s because it’s hard for you to move on.”

Of course the hardest part is not seeing my kids or my partner since well before the thanksgiving holiday. I’ve been living in our basement, relegated to an old couch on a 10x10 square of carpet. It’s undoubtedly been harder on my partner, having to shoulder the burden of being a single parent when we’re so used to working as a team. I just want to go upstairs. The footsteps make me lonely. I tested again tonight. The line is so faint now. Maybe tomorrow it will be negative, and I can see my family with a mask until I test negative in another 48 hours. But time has crawled these two weeks. Even slower than the past four years.

I have a lot of feelings that I don’t know how to put into words. Shame and anger. Depression. Hopelessness. Rage. While I still had a fever my brother texted me. He asked, since I’ve gotten COVID now, if my kids can start hanging out with his kids. I told him, “No.” and left it at that. We haven’t talked since. We won’t be coming to Christmas again this year.

I want to go back to March 2020.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Each one of my students, their parents, their family members has had COVID multiple times. They’re elementary students. They literally cannot remember a world without this pandemic. It’s a common part of life that everyone tells them if fine and normal. Everyday I act as a reminder to them that something is not right.

This is why anti-masking won out in the end.

There is no "return to normal" without anti-masking, because masks serve as a constant reminder that this is not normal. You cannot get people to return to pre-pandemic behaviors without eradicating the thought of the pandemic in their mind. Eliminating masks, the symbol of the pandemic, is necessary to achieve the ends of a reversion to pre-pandemic behavior.

I suspect that many of the people who get angry at mask-wearers are doing so as a reaction to cognitive dissonance. If they acknowledge that the pandemic is still ongoing, then they accept that their reckless behavior endangers themselves, their families, and their friends. So, they instead paint mask-wearers as delusional freaks in order to avoid confronting reality.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago

My students’ generation are the most propagandized to population in history. They all have unfettered access to social media algorithms 24/7 which refuse to tell them how utterly fucked everything is. Before the pandemic the algorithm would at least show them some bits of knowledge. My students knew what climate change was. Now they’re surprised to learn about it. What’s worse is that each time I talk about climate change in class it’s like it’s the first time they’re hearing about it.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 11 months ago (1 children)

meow-hug

“I’m sorry. I know it’s because it’s hard for you to move on.”

angery

It's hard to remember to keep my rage focused on the rich assholes on top that convinced everyone to throw themselves and their children into the woodchipper when I hear condescending shit like that.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Took quite a bit of effort not to throw that student into an actual woodchipper after that ‘apology.’

For real though, I’ve lost all of the little respect I had for our school counselor after that. How about you tell this child to not get mad at how other people choose to live their live?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago

It's not even about letting people live how they want, it's about lying to children about an ongoing pandemic

That school counselor should [REDACTED]

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

Yeah, I've lost all respect for a number of people in my life after comments like that. You're setting a good example though, we need more people pushing back if it's ever gonna change. Unfortunately, a lot of people are gonna have to learn the hard way and take some of us down with them before they come around.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Can only imagine how stressful it is being in a room filled with kids, especially when I'm sure all of their parents have assured them the danger has passed. My nephews have both had Covid 3-4 times and I can only hope that they don't have any long term side effects from being constantly exposed to the plague.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

For their sake I really hope there’s some validity to adaptive immune response model for COVID mitigation.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm sorry meow-hug this whole thing has been so tough on all of us

I want to go back to March 2020.

yeah...even just to go back to those early days when other people cared about keeping themselves safe would be nice

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)

During lockdown oddly enough I felt more connected to one others than any other time of my life. Part of a global community. A lot of people feel that way. And that sense of camaraderie was wholly unacceptable to the capitalist class.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago

It really is true. I mean I don't want to ignore how horrible that time was for some - I was lucky I could live at home and I was still employed - but there really was a sense of "we're all in the same boat" among my family and friends. Tbh that period was probably the closest my family's ever been.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Yeah it's rough. I'm having a hard time justifying masking up anymore, it feels like there's never going to be an end and nobody cares whether I pass it on. Nobody is returning the concern I'm trying to show for their health so I'm left wondering what this even accomplishes.

Maybe I'm just being selfish and want to justify the nagging temptation to stop. I dunno. Feels real bad. Am I gonna be the weird old person in 20 years still doing this? What is the endgame when society has decided to just let it rip?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

Am I gonna be the weird old person in 20 years still doing this?

In 20 years covid is gonna be just one of many dystopian reasons to be masking. doomer

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (2 children)

We have a year and a half left before my oldest child starts going to school. We can’t homeschool them. Not that I would want to anyway. And I can’t expect them to wear a mask effectively, especially when they will be the only one doing so. Pediatric masks are extremely hard to fit properly and usually are only rated at level 1 surgical.

I’m praying to the gods of virology that it’ll be less severe by then or at least we’ll have better treatments by then. But I can’t imagine I’ll ever stop masking while I teach.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Do you and your family use nasal sprays, like covixyl or xlear? They're not silver bullets, but every little bit you can use to stack the odds in your favor.... Plus, they help protect against other airborne viruses besides covid.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for that. My partner uses nasal sprays. Due to a facial injury, I cannot. Really wish I could, but spraying anything in my nose is like stabbing an ice pick into my brain. Even taking Covid antigen tests to gauge my infectiousness just about killed me.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

np. That sucks, sorry you gotta deal with that. I was thinking more about your kids though, help them from bringing stuff home. Give'em a spritz every morning for their "allergies". Idk, I'm an uncle and don't envy y'all trying to navigate parenthood with all this madness going on. rat-salute-2

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm amazed you've avoided it this far as a teacher.

There shouldn't be any shame in catching this disease, it's incredibly infectious and is basically everywhere whenever a wave starts, and it's difficult to maintain precautions 100% of the time.

Did you get a recent covid vaccine?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Thanks for that. I’m trying not to beat myself up but it’s difficult. And yes I did get the updated vaccine. But with all of the recent variants, and this being my first time having contracting it, it still hit me pretty hard.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

Even N95s aren't 100% effective. There's almost certainly nothing more you could have done; at the end of the day we're all just trying to stack the odds in our favor but you roll the dice that many times eventually you lose. Hope you get better soon! meow-hug