I don’t normally ask this, because I understand my choice to blog and share my thoughts and feelings widely opens it all up to be commented on, judged, encouraged, etc. But for this post, I don’t want any comments or reactions or anything.

My heart is heavy enough. I am writing this because I don’t want to explode. I’m not even advocating anymore – it’s too hard. It’s too heavy. I can’t carry the burden of others’ actions anymore, even though I have to live a life affected by them.

I have written many times about fear and choosing to not live in it. I am sick of people’s comments about fear when it comes to this pandemic. I am not taking the precautions I am taking out of fear – I am taking them out of deliberate, cautious, informed (medically informed, even, by the team of doctors Kiran has had his entire life) thought.

I don’t want to be doing this anymore.

I am tired of everyone arguing, and I am especially tired of everyone saying things like “You do you and I do me; no judgement; if you’re worried, stay home.”…as if their behavior doesn’t have an influence on community spread. As if there is no difference between 100 cases in Polk County in a 24 hour period and 10 cases.

I don’t want to be doing this anymore.

I am still heavily grieving the small, tiny return to normalcy…the step we were about to take in early July. Something so effing simple – Kiran was going to go back to in-person therapies at Childserve. He has four therapies a week – physical, occupational, speech, and feeding – it’s two afternoons. We have been doing them virtually, which means I have been hands-on-acting-therapist for months now. The numbers were finally low enough, steady enough, we knew more about this virus…we were going to take on that risk.

And then we started seeing the biggest numbers we’ve seen yet, and Kiran’s physician recommended that if Kiran was progressing with virtual therapies, we should continue that way to mitigate risk.

Because the spread affects our family’s ability to go out into the community. People still don’t seem to grasp that concept, and I’m tired of trying to educate. If it doesn’t directly affect you – if you’re not “living in fear” and you don’t have an immunocompromised person or person with underlying conditions that would make this virus severe/deathly – I’m just not sure you will grasp it if you haven’t already.

I don’t want to be doing this anymore.

We already live a life that is isolated in many ways. I grieve it all the time, but I have also done a damn good job of building a life for Kiran – a social life, a not-lived-in-fear life, a life out in the community – and that has been taken away. And I don’t know when it will be safe – and smart – for us to start taking steps toward that life again.

We were almost there. And it was taken away again.

It didn’t have to be this way for families like mine.

I grieve watching everyone return to normal. I admit my jealousy, my anger, my judgement – I own it all.

I don’t want to be doing this anymore.

How long will I? How long would you, if it meant protecting the person you love most in the entire world?