#lots didn’t care to begin with
i miss when people took covid seriously. i miss people making their own masks and the idea of going into a store without one being entirely socially unacceptable. i miss when all the schools were out and no one had anything to do because they were inside staying safe. i miss ten-feet-away socially distanced masked picnics in my friend’s backyard. i miss the phrase “unprecedented times” & i hate the phrase “the new normal” because none of this should be normal. we shouldn’t be going about our days as if it were. i shouldn’t be the only person in a walmart with a face covering. how is any of this “normal”? people are still dying, the covid rates are spiking again, people aren’t getting boosters and my dad goes to church with two thousand people he doesn’t even have a mask with him except for the crumpled-up blue mask in his left front pocket that’s gone through the laundry at least twice. people are still dying, especially disabled people are dying, and nobody acts like they care anymore. my family and i used to go for walks around a lake fifteen minutes away and we and whoever passed us would all put on our masks if we got within 15 feet of each other. now my little sister goes to her fifth grade math class and the only person wearing a mask is her friend who had covid three days ago. when my dad got covid he passed out on the floor next to the stairs on his way to the bathroom and when he went to the hospital they ran tests and it was “just covid.” when did covid become “just covid”? 284 people in the US died of covid this week. when we locked down 7 people had died that week. and “covid is over,” and “this is the new normal,” and target doesn’t have free disposable masks in the entryway anymore.
