A Journal of the (Epidemic) #33

 Hey, so from what I understand, it's not a pandemic anymore.  

After more than two years, very close to three, maybe there will be slightly less quibbling when the statement can be suggested, we're just about done with this thing.

I know, I know, it's not gone.  It'll never be gone.  Calling it epidemic means it'll be with us for a while yet, like the flu.  I'd like to think we learned a few things from all of this.  Maybe that when you're sick, take it seriously, for one.  I don't know what else.  Take your own lessons.  

I can't get over that on the whole I've made it through the experience in a fairly privileged position, and that will have to be the dominant takeaway for me.  I had a job, I kept the job, got extra money for continuing to work that job, never had a diagnosis (even if somehow I caught it without knowing it, never in any kind of debilitating way), didn't lose any immediate family members or friends.  In fact, circling back around to the job itself, except for a few months, and one month sitting home, most of the time was business as usual.  I don't have a job where it was ever feasible to do it remotely.  I wore masks at work.  I got used to it.  I know this was difficult for a lot of people.  A lot of people who did wear them never figured out how to wear them.  Actually, I started out the pandemic wearing masks while also wearing glasses, and even figured that out without being driven insane.  I had this great set of masks that had different mustaches on them.  They became a part of my identity.  I didn't imagine that possibility when I bought my first masks in May 2020.  I'll actually miss wearing them, assuming the mandates don't somehow recur.  As it is, I haven't put one on again since the mandates dropped again, the second time this year, a few weeks ago.

This is to say, this might be the last time I update this journal.  Maybe just go back to, y'know, regular blogging about writing life, rather than life as it's been transformed over the past few years.  This blog was launched specifically as a writers record, but I thought it would be irresponsible to omit such a monumental and prolonged experience from that record.  I started it accidentally, and then I realized I had started a series, so I started numbering them, and then periodically updating as I thought I had something new to say.  Thirty-three entries is a decent number.  I've slowed my blogging dramatically since a decade ago, when I launched this blog, and the pace reduced even more during the pandemic, although probably writing about the pandemic here probably motivated me to write more than I might have otherwise.

It's been interesting.