Member-only story
The COVID Vaccine Won’t Change My Life Much
It has already changed and it won’t come back
I was just talking to one of my sisters. She recently turned 80; I’ll be 73 next month. Our other sister is in between us and all of our children are middle aged, some even getting ready for retirement.
Our family is getting up there.
Those of us who are somewhat local used to get together several times each year. Pizza, a family party, sometimes a wedding or a funeral — COVID has changed all that. So has Trump: some of the children have become right-wing crazies and we have painfully had to disassociate ourselves from them on social media. COVID stopped the get-togethers, but we would have stopped inviting them anyway.
So the family is shrinking as well.
My sister and I talked about that. Neither of us wants to be in crowds any longer, successful vaccine or not. Neither of us wants to be inside a restaurant, and we do not want to drive very far.
If we are going to meet up with family, it will have to be outside and we will still be wearing masks. Hugging is going to be very awkward; I don’t want to unless the other person is masked and even then.. well, maybe not. My wife has asthma from smoking. She’s higher risk than I am, but age brings its own risks. Neither of us…
