In a time where there’s so much that we can talk and argue about online, I’ve chosen to stay relatively quiet. I’ve posted, sure, but if you look at my posts for the last month they’ve been about my dog, the weather, baseball, an aluminum foil paper cut, etc.
I haven’t been on a school campus since March 13. I haven’t been to church since March 8. I haven’t gone grocery shopping since March 29. I have seriously limited my interactions with others, just like we were told to. And while I picked it back up some, my life isn’t back to normal. It's not even close. But see while my body has stayed sheltered at home, my mind has not. My mind took everything in, from every direction, and suddenly had fewer places of release. I call people on the phone every night when I go on a walk, but otherwise, I live alone, so that's been my primary contact with people for the last six months. That's it. And now I've reached the point where my mind is currently being overrun with thoughts and opinions and feelings, and I don’t know what to do with them anymore.
So it’s time for me to share. I'm not picking a side. I’m not sharing to disagree or offend anyone or start any arguments. There are some thoughts I have, particularly political, that I won’t address it all, because that’s not what this and social media are for. Except for NC State Superintendent. I'll speak on that publicly as far as you'll let me. But the truth is, I have a lot of thoughts about these things. They don’t all need to be shared, but maybe some of them should.
So today, I'm addressing Covid.
While we may all be tired of hearing and talking about the coronavirus, it hasn’t gone away, so it’s still a topic. See I was asked recently, on two separate occasions, why I’m scared of Covid. I really didn’t know how to answer that, because I don’t think I am. I’ve been lucky to be safe and healthy the entire time, but I can’t say the same for my family, I can’t say the same for my friends, and I can’t say the same for a lot of people I know.
I’m going to jump back to a story from a few months ago because I think experience is what makes up a lot of our feelings these days. The North Carolina governor issued a stay-at-home order effective for March 30. That’s not early enough for my story. The governor closed schools effective March 16. I need to go earlier than that. The first Covid case in North Carolina was announced on March 3. But I actually need to go earlier than that too. See my story begins before Covid was an issue in the US.
February 27. When my brother texted me and asked me if I would take Toby (his dog) for his spring break beginning March 6. Of course I would. I took him last year and the year before that I think too. But what I didn’t realize then, when I agreed to take Toby for just over a week, was that it would actually be five weeks.

North Carolina had 2 Covid cases when my brother dropped Toby off, both easily trackable cases. But when he returned to North Carolina on March 14, there were 23. He told me on the phone that he wasn’t feeling well, and he wasn’t going to come get Toby. Yes, I told him, I agree with that decision.
He was sick. Really sick. He drove back to New Jersey alone because he couldn’t fly, and his NJ health insurance would not help him much in North Carolina. But then he got worse, and yes, he got tested. It was negative, and after several days, he was better. We thought he got a false negative for a while but the antibody test he had done a month ago was also negative. He really never had it.
I heard my mom’s concern on the phone and my brother’s fear in text messages as he got sicker. He lost his sense of taste and smell, a symptom later determined to be a sign of Covid. But he didn’t have it. And if he didn’t have it... what was the real thing like?
I personally think that if everyone’s family was hit by Covid, people would treat it differently. I question if people who don’t want to wear a mask have known someone that had it. If they knew someone on a ventilator. Knew someone who died.
I have. To all of the above.
Maybe that’s why I take this seriously. Maybe that’s why I don’t go out much. Maybe that’s why I wash my hands after opening a package in the mail. Maybe that’s why I wipe all my groceries down after a pickup order. Maybe that’s why I shower and wash every piece of clothing I was wearing after going inside a store. Maybe that’s why I wear not only a mask, but gloves too, when I do.
I don’t know. Truthfully, I don’t know. Maybe I am scared of Covid. Maybe I’m not. I think the ultimate truth is, I know what it can do. And I don’t want it to do it to me. I don’t want it to do it to anyone else I know. It’s already got enough of them. I don’t want my mom to call me telling me somebody else died. I don’t want to miss another funeral.
Cases in North Carolina are still on the rise. The percent of tests that are positive is still sitting above 7%. They want to be below 5%.
I know what the solution to that is, they just won’t do it. North Carolina still has a list of restrictions on who is allowed to get tested. If I wanted to, I couldn’t get tested. I’ve never fit any of their characteristics. Maybe that’s what scares me. If I catch it, would I ever know? If I’m asymptomatic, would I spread it, because I don’t know I have it, because I can’t get tested? Or worse yet, have already done that?
And yes, that terrifies me. More so than anything else. But is it really Covid that I'm scared of? I don't think so. But maybe it is.
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