Tag: 301

301 // COVID Scares

The mornings are feeling rather frigid now. Increasingly they are frosty too. Autumn is well underway and I know soon it’s going to start feeling like winter long before the season’s calendar changes. The colors of Autumn are just past their prime now and the once vibrant leaves are dry and drooping. There is still beauty to be seen as they flutter from the tres in a flurry on every breeze. I’m trying to find ways to love the fall.

I woke this morning still not feeling quite like myself, but I’m a little more me than I was yesterday. There are further COVID scares at work and a coworker commenting to me on the minor outbreak confided in me that while she hope she wasn’t infected because it would disrupt operations, she kind of hoped she was because she could use the time off.

This is what I was talking about yesterday. It’s sad we have to hope for sickness, for this particular sickness just so that we might have a little time to rest, to reflect, to recover from the overwhelm and uncertainty of these past couple of years. We’ve all joked about faking a positive result but the jokes are sounding more and more serious all the time.

To be honest, I am scared of the rising cases and I am frustrated by the lack of transparency. I’m outraged by the relaxed rules for the vaccinated. Yes, I know that the chances of severe disease and spread are low, but almost all of us got vaccinated over 6 months ago and that means our immune response is weakening. There are breakthrough cases and some of the staff, not to mention the children, are still at risk.

A coworker’s daughter died from a COVID infection. She was the same age as me. I suppose this is what is freaking me out. I know the chances are I would survive, but I don’t like taking the risk. I don’t like risking my loved ones’ lives either, and for what? No one can seem to come up with a good reason, but we keep going out and risking our lives and each other’s lives all the same.

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I didn’t let myself hope for a snow day but damn do I wish we had gotten it. Instead we’re on a “delayed schedule” this morning so while we’re picking up the kids later we had to be at work 20 minutes early. That means freezing and fighting with the snow for longer hours filled with more risk. I wish the powers that be understood that. Regular schedule or close the whole district down, please!

We got hit bad but most of it has melted by now. Tomorrow we’re supposed to get more of the same—cold, snow, icy roads, and dangerous traffic—but once again I have no hope for a snow day. The storm won’t be in until midmorning they say and by then we’ll be out on the road with the kids, and by afternoon, when it’s forecasted to be at it’s worst, we’ll be fighting nature to get them back home.

The weather, and the new class of employees I’m scheduled to teach, has me wound up tight. I’ve never done this before and there’s a chance I’ll be doing it all on my own.I’m freaking out. I’m afraid to fail. I’m afraid to say the wrong thing, to give the wrong answer, and, worst of all, to have no answer to give at all.