The decision. My wife and I have both done a good job of protecting ourselves against the COVID. Neither of us wants it. At the expense our protection, has come our social lives. I like to go to open mics, and she likes to go to happy hours. While drastically different in one explicitly says happy and the other implicitly means sadness, we love being around people.
This has made it hard on us. As hard as other people? Absolutely not. Even with being laid off, and fortunately, finding a part time job, my wife still is wonderfully employed. I cannot complain.
Typically, our last few summers have been busy than the previous one. This all came to a screeching halt with COVID-19, and we happily protected ourselves during this time. Quarantining was hard at the beginning. It was too cold to go outside. Summer pushed the cold aside, and we are able to experience the fresh, very humid air.
While we mostly stopped ourselves from making indoor plans for extended period of time with our closest friends, we still have one last trip. It is when we go to a lake house. It is beautiful. My wife wants to go sooooooooo bad. I want to go to because heck, we’ll be outside most of the time. Obviously, COVID doesn’t stop outside, but it is harder to transmit. If we are going to be lenient with our rules one time, this makes sense. We’re not going to be stuck indoors all weekend long. We’ll be on the lake.
Is it perfect? Absolutely not. But how long can we go on without bending the rules a little for our own social sanity? I wish forever, but that is not the case. My wife needs this more than anything. She’s been exceptionally cautious throughout all of this pandemic. This is the one thing which hasn’t cancelled, and it can be relatively safer than most other options.
But yet, there is still a risk. Getting COVID from a weekend at a lake house sounds like a sad way to get COVID. Actually, it doesn’t sound sad at all. Is it worth it? Who knows? Is helping our mental health worth it? Yes.
This is a decision everyone must come to terms with. Same with masks. I’m consistently in agreement with everyone should where a mask. I want people to be as smart as possible, yet, there are times when I say screw it. It is an inconvenience to me. Fortunately, this is less so than before, but this is why I can’t shame or blame anyone too hard for breaking pandemic rules. This is hard on all of us. We need to hold each other accountable while also realizing people need to cut loose.
Will I go to the lake house? Probably. Do I see myself staying in the lake house with people? I’m not sure about that. Will it rain? I hope so. It will make an easier decision.