I’m still partially locked down. Here’s what I need you to know.

Hi, abled people. It’s me, a disabled colleague. You like to think about me occasionally when it suits a narrative (you sure love your inspirational videos), but by and large, you prefer it if I stick to the background. Or maybe don’t speak up at all. Some Scrooges among you would rather me die already and reduce the surplus population.

As I wrote last year, I am a COVID long hauler, and since that writing, have survived the virus again. It was unpleasant, and I do not know that a third bout would be as successful for me. As such, I go only places my presence is absolutely required. So far, this means the doctor’s office and work. I’m a library worker, and much as I’d like to revolutionize the field, most of my work cannot be done from home. I don’t go grocery shopping. I don’t go to concerts. I don’t pop into my favorite restaurants. I can’t.

This is where people usually go sucks to be you, couldn’t be me and go back to doing what they’re doing, which is usually going somewhere with their naked faces flapping in the wind. This time, I’d like to ask folks to listen. There are some things I’ve been dying to say.

No, I’m not living in fear

I am afraid, but I wouldn’t have to be if it weren’t for other people (more on this later). This is what’s necessary to keep myself safe. Prior to wearing a mask all the time, I picked up pretty much every cold, every flu that swept through the library. What chance would I have with a virulent disease learning to make itself more infectious? And yet, I and others like me get called paranoid or told we’re clinging to the pandemic when we express concern.

This is really frustrating

Truly. Because for a brief, shining two weeks (that’s how long it lasted here), people were getting vaccinated and wearing their masks at the same time, which is what would have permitted me to take one of those “calculated risks” abled folks are always banging on about and going to like…a local game store. That ended quickly, and people, even people I previously trusted to be careful, became so taken with the idea of not wearing something on their face that they wouldn’t hear of taking precautions for people who need them.

My life isn’t even that restrictive

The lifestyle I’m describing, where I only go out a few times a week and only see a few trusted friends and family members? Yeah, that’s pretty dangerous for someone with the immune system of a rotten log like mine. Many others in my place have not left the lockdowns of 2020. Still others are worse off. They cannot visit with people, because their immune systems aren’t even safe enough for a gamble with a trusted companion outside.

COVID isn’t over

Some people seem genuinely surprised to hear this because the coverage in the news has dropped so radically. It’s not. Two variants of concern are about to rampage through America this summer. And governments have issued very weak statements “recommending” that people mask but stopping short of requiring it, because nobody wants to be unpopular.

You’re making it worse

Every Tool concert, every Applebee’s reunion, every trip to Disneyworld, you’re doing something very dangerous. Even if you don’t get COVID yourself, even if you get a mild version, if you don’t get long COVID, you’re helping the thing mutate. It learns how to become more infectious, evade vaccines, and become more effective at surviving treatments.

So then you come back from that experience you told yourself you deserved because it’s been 2.5 years and you’ve been so good and you stop in at the library. Unmasked. You need to renew your card, so you swing by my counter. And you breathe all over me.

We know that universal masking is far more effective than single party masking. It’s better than no masks at all, but it’s still not safe for us when you eschew them entirely and we have to make our rare trips into the world. This is why.

But what about mEnTaL hEaLtH?

Great question! How do you think we manage mental health when all we see is the insides of our houses, or in some of our cases our workplaces? Maybe ask one of us. I could write a much longer post about that, and maybe someday I will, but that’s not what this is for.

Mental health has become a whataboutism that I’m pretty sure people truly don’t care about. After all, stigma is still at a high, and access to therapy has not improved. What people really mean is “I want to do things and not feel bad”. I’m not going to help you with that.

Why can’t I just take care of me and you just take care of you?

A pandemic is a community health problem, with wide-ranging impacts for its members. We know that people of color have disproportionately experienced loss, we know that older people have disproportionately experienced loss, and we know that disabled folks have disproportionately experienced loss. We cannot be a society that says we care for the vulnerable and then turn around and…not do that. (I know we have done and continue to do that; I’m not naive.) Rugged individualism does not impress a novel coronavirus. And it doesn’t impress me.

Wearing a mask, refraining from crowds, and sticking to necessary errands are not just actions I can take. They are actions you can take, and they are acts of love and community support.

Chances are, you got through this and still shrugged. Sucks to be you, couldn’t be me. That’s the American way. But maybe somebody somewhere read it and puts on a mask to go grocery shopping or thinks twice about that stand up show. That’s good enough for me.