Pandemic Milestones

A vaccine is here. It is being given to the most vulnerable first, and then to the rest of us young and

healthy folks. Taiya has been asking all kinds of "When we all get vaccinated, will we be able to..." questions. Will we be able to go to school, visit Gammie and Poppie, visit Vermont, go to a store, go on vacation, go to her friends' houses. It is a dream to be able to say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, after ten months of no. 

Arkansas has lost over 3,000 people to the coronavirus. We have around 2,500 new cases a day. We are still staying home, still only seeing a very few people, very occasionally, only outdoors and masked. We will make it until there is a vaccine for us, and then we will let the yeses begin. 

I have been feeling depleted this week, unable to do more than the minimum. Feeling sad for no specific reason. Today I was putting a sweatshirt on over my nighty (it was a stay-in-pajamas-all-day kind of day) and my nighty tore in the shoulder, a nice big hole, and I actually started crying over it. It's a lovely nighty that I got for Christmas the year William was born, so, six years ago. I can totally fix it, but the moment it tore, it just felt too much. It's always some ridiculously small thing like this that unravels me when I'm sad. Jeremy came in while I was crying, and he was terrified that I'd gotten some bad news or something. When I told him, he just held me on his lap and let me cry, and was kind enough not to laugh at me. Then he said something so funny I started laughing a little too hard for the joke (we were bemoaning having to watch kids' movies all the time, and he said, "I just want to watch something with sex and moral ambiguity!" and I just cracked up. I don't know if this is one of those you-had-to-be-there things, but really, I laughed for as long as I had been crying). 

Once I'd had a good cry, followed by a somewhat hysterical laugh, I kept going with work, just pushing through to the end of my day. Then I played outside with Daisy for a while, enjoying the afternoon light, enjoying being silly, enjoying running around in circles. And now I'm about to make pancakes for dinner. So, another week of coronatimes is over (I've long since lost track of the number of days). We're about to embark on William's birthday week, and Christmas, and then: the days will start getting longer, the stress of the holidays will be behind us, a new president will be sworn in, and the promise of a vaccine within reach... a happy new year indeed. Thank goodness.