Columbus, Ohio at night from space.

The news is shifting yet again regarding Covid. Cases are on a downward trajectory and the accompanying announcements of reducing mask mandates is all the rage. Let’s face it…we are ALL burned out by this thing. We want normal again. We want our lives back. We want to sweep this nasty little episode back under the bed and maybe pretend it never happened.

We are such strange animals. We have the mental capacity to create a telescope that recently travelled one million miles from earth in an incomprehensibly short period of time. Yet, we can’t remember what happened the last time we relaxed our mask wearing and the subsequent wave nearly crushed us.

We have now lost a little over 910,000 Americans to Covid. That’s about 5,000 more people than live in Columbus, Ohio. It’s about 8,000 less people than live in Fort Worth, Texas. Can you wrap your head around that number??? Imagine driving into Columbus and the streets are empty. Every house is empty. The buildings downtown are empty. The hospitals, schools, shopping malls…all empty. 

We lost 60,000 in January of this year.

60,000.

We’ve become way too numb if that number doesn’t still break our hearts. 

And now, the rush begins to back off the precautions…the very things that helped keep that number from being astronomically higher. I am here to tell you…I am not an epidemiologist…but it’s too much too soon and too quickly. I have no idea when…or IF… I’ll ever stop wearing at least one KN-95 mask in stores. Two if it’s really crowded. I’ll take boosters when the CDC suggests it. One of my dearest friends was just diagnosed with Covid for the third time. My younger daughter and her wife are both struggling with waves of feeling bad a whole month after their diagnoses.

It’s just incomprehensible.

That being said…life does move forward. The sun is shining, the air is sweet, and there is promise of spring ahead. Our snow has melted a great deal this week. The birds are having a grand time at the feeders. The kitty lays in the sun and bakes her bones…rolling back and forth on the concrete path. I have finished both sleeves of the sweater I am knitting and am now over half finished with the body. I am on the last color. I’m glad. I think I’ll put my knitting needles away for a bit after this one. Or, maybe I’ll go back to socks for a little bit. We’ll be going on our beach vacation in April. Socks are a great travel project.

I go today to get my blood drawn to see how I’m doing since my surgery. I may get my bangs trimmed and maybe get a little cut off the bottom to get rid of some dead ends. I may do a little Valentine’s Day shopping. I need to get out and stretch my legs…with a mask, of course. I hope you have a great day and can get outside in some sunshine.

❤️

“In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.”

Psalm 4:8 ESV