I gave you the back to school report. Low morale, great intentions, supplies and menus… The return to a crazy life… But it’s a very strange comeback all the same. A different start. Even more than usual (because they are all different: you get older, your children grow up, the organization is different…).
This year, we must add to our constraints and our fears the little Covid detail . The little extra that (was) (not) lacking in your life. What does this change concretely?
With my wolf, I do (not) what I like …
The essential, the indispensable, the inescapable is spelled in 6 letters: Mask . And even in 7 letters because you have to plan more than one !!
I prepared a box… no, two boxes with clean masks: a large box for large adult and teen faces and a small box for number 3 which has smaller masks. Note that she won’t have to wear one since she is in elementary school and is not even 10 years old yet.
And I have planned, next to the boxes, a net for the dirty masks to be stored. Because it will take crazy rotations with at least 2 or 3 masks per day for my 2 big acts and myself.
My concern in anticipation is the hunt for “dirty” masks. I can already hear the discussions coming: but why are there hardly any masks left in the box? I told you to put the dirty in the net !!! And how are we going to do it now !!!!!!!!!!!!!! (yes, I feel like it’s going to deserve at least as many exclamation points if not more).
And because I am a scalded mother, just a mother for that matter, I can also imagine the more or less voluntary hiccups, especially from number 2: “I forgot the masks, they didn’t leave me go back to high school, I had to come home and that’s why I missed the class… ”I’m sure you visualize the scene well too.
And what else?
Yes, because hey, just putting a mask on your face is not enough to fix the problem. Even if it is the must have of the fall, accompanied by its little question “have you thought of taking a mask?” (or its counterpart, perhaps even more frequent “shit, I forgot my mask”), it is
only an accessory in the fight against the nasty virus.
We all know that we have to stay away from each other. We all take advantage (especially at work) of the new no-kiss trend (oh damn, the time we save !! Among other things…), but the anguish rises a notch when the virus approaches.
What if I have been in contact with someone who has been in contact with a positive test? I admit, I am right in it. And at that moment, thousands of questions burst forth that were not really being formulated until then. Should I take a test? When? Should I go to work? Should I wait for the result of the stuff and stuff tests or anticipate and make an appointment? …
No, but wait !! Let’s consider another version: and if there is a case at school, how to handle? Test? When? For who? Job? And school for the other children? What if number 3 is 38, I stay home with her? Do I see a doctor or do I wait?
And the morale in all of this?
Until now, the Covid (yes, I know, it’s THE Covid) was just information. We rubbed our hands with gel, we wore our masks … And then he came closer. I am not really afraid of him as a disease. I know it can be virulent, but I also know that most of the time you get over it well. But I am afraid of what I have described before.
The questions, the doubts, the days locked up wondering if it is good to be careful or if it is better to go to work while respecting even more distances. Guilt is lying in wait for me. As always and as with everything: feeling guilty about going to work and potentially being a danger to others or feeling guilty about staying at home when I am certainly not contagious.
So today, as I suggested to you above, I was in contact with girls who trained with another positive test. I am not in direct contact, but I am wondering. I am awaiting the results of the first tests before considering any decisions, but I am already suffering the full force of the precautionary measures: no more hand for me for at least a week, maybe more.
And finally, wearing the mask everywhere all the time, it undermines me. I feel like I’m playing in a bad movie where the actors are hesitant. Not to mention the physical discomfort that one can experience, it is uncomfortable to look at and still so strange.
And then, it leads to judgments that I do not get used to. It deserves an entire article elsewhere! We often hear and read people criticizing the whole world and especially the unconscious who have not worn the mask or who have come together … And this, often when they have a loved one touched.
Obviously, I’m not going to congratulate those who don’t respect the rules, but I don’t want to enter this binary system: you respect everything, you are a good citizen / you do not respect everything, you are a good to nothing. Who is irreproachable? Who hasn’t failed? Kiss someone you like, be closer than you should… forget your mask !?
And despite all precautions, the virus will surely find a way to live a little longer … or a lot. Because he is insidious and he adapts. Because man is fallible anyway.
In short, this return to school is different and less well. A little anxiety-provoking, heavy in terms of organization and sad as the weather this afternoon. However, we will live it, we will face it and I hope the next one will be better (except that my last will go to college… bouhouhou).
