COVID, Year Three

In the awful early days of the pandemic I found comfort, solace and inspiration in compulsively re-watching the Youtube video of Gal Gadot and her famous friends singing “Imagine.”

I know I was not alone! At a time of great danger, sadness and uncertainty, Gadot brought us all together through the powerful message of the deepest, most profound and least hypocritical song ever written. 

Like everyone, I was deeply moved by the tremendous sacrifice endemic in MASSIVE celebrities like Will Ferrell taking anywhere from five to ten minute out of their fabulously successful lives to singing several words of a song alongside equally ubiquitous famous people. 

There have been MANY times throughout the last few years when I have been on the brink of losing all hope and all that has kept me from giving up entirely has been the video for Gadot’s “Imagine” and, to a MUCH lesser extent, the innocent smiles of my two young sons. 

I love my children but neither Harris nor Declan has appeared in the blockbuster Batman v Superman: Dawn of Vengeance. They do not have a single Nickelodeon’s Kid’s Choice Award between them. So you’ll just have to forgive me if I’m just a little more inspired by a FUCK TON OF SUPER FAMOUS PEOPLE GRACIOUSLY SINGING A FAMOUS SONG BY A BEATLE than a pair of small children whose very minor claim to “fame” is that they’re related to an exceedingly minor cult writer. 

I was inspired by Gadot, of course. We all were/are. But I was also encouraged by the idea that at some point there would be a vaccine or a cure that would, at the very least, halt the awful progress of this seeming society and civilization-killer. 

From the grim vantage point of 2022, it’s easy to forget that for too long we had no idea whether there would EVER be a cure or a vaccine for COVID. We were in uncharted waters. We’ve been through some pretty heavy shit together before. The Great Depression. 9/11. The Trump presidency. Emeril’s sitcom. But I had never experienced a pandemic so deadly and far-reaching that it changes the way we live in a profound and lasting way. 

Then a series of seemingly safe and effect vaccines were created and things got a little better! The world did not seem quite so grim, hopeless and apocalyptic anymore. It seemed like we might just survive this COVID nightmare after all. 

In an exceedingly positive development, a president who went out of his way to minimize the pandemic and its effects was replaced by a president who trusts Fauci and the science and thinks that people should be considerate for their own sake and the sake of those around them. 

Things seemed to get much better. “Weird Al” Yankovic announced an ambitious new tour. I’m sure other good things happened but that’s the one that mattered most to me. 

Then, alas, things stopped getting better and started getting worse. The Delta Variant brought the fear back in a big way. It was followed by Omicron and it started to feel like we hadn’t made any goddamn progress at all. 

Maybe we’d just been deluding ourselves because it began to feel like no matter what we do, it won’t make a lick of difference. 

I was sincerely hoping that 2022 would be the year we got over COVID, a glorious annum where we turned the tide decisively and were able to regain control over our lives, individually and as a culture. 

Instead it seems like 2022 will instead go down as our THIRD COVID year. And that fucking sucks. It fucking sucks for me, a weird loner who recoils from human company and prefers to lead a hermit-like existence. But it sucks way harder for my two sons, one of whom is VERY social in a way that has made the pandemic particularly brutal for him.

I’m tired. We’re all fucking tired. I feel like a lot of people have just given up on trying prevent the spread of COVID and have returned to their old ways regardless of the danger involved. I get that. I REALLY get that. But that way of thinking, understandable as it might be, could lead to untold death and destruction. 

I have no idea when this will end or what normal will even look like at that point. 

We're in this for the long haul, it seems, so let's try to be good to one another because one of the many things that has made the pandemic so tough has been learning just how fucking terrible and selfish we are as a country. 

Let’s stop being so selfish and terrible and maybe, just maybe, this might actually end at some point. 

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