Freedom FINALLY!!

It's 8:07 a.m. on May 29, 2021. I just woke up and the thought immediately crossed my mind that the day is FINALLY here!  

After 442 days of lock downs, quarantining, social distancing, face masks, gallons (okay maybe not gallons, but a LOT) of hand sanitizer, I'm now free!! 

On  May 15th, I got my 2nd Moderna vaccine and today marks 14 days since that momentous occasion and I'm beyond thrilled to start, in earnest, getting back to life before a pandemic turned the world's apple cart upside down.

I would have never guessed on March 13, 2020 when lock downs began that it would be 14 1/2 months of quarantine.  I'm glad I didn't know that fact back then, I think my mental health would have declined much sooner! And I must say, watching the news every night where 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000+ people were dying every single day in the United States was a heavy burden to carry. 

As of today, my day of freedom, I want to acknowledge the more than 593,000 people in the US that have died due to this virus.  We could have done much better than that, but some people made virology politics. It's sickening, it's sad, and it was unnecessary. I'll step off my soap box now. But I do want to remember the incredible toll this has caused in human terms.

Now I'd like to define freedom in this context for what my life will look like moving forward. It DOESN'T mean that I go anywhere and everywhere without a mask.  But it DOES  mean that I can see family, go to restaurants, and enjoy fun times with friends: dinners, game nights, hanging out in coffee shops, doing touristy stuff around town, traveling, etc!!

The last year has been excruciatingly difficult.  I constantly denied my impulses to go out and to keep myself and others safe by staying home.  But that comes with a high price for someone who is an extravert, lives alone, works from home, and even church became a virtual experience, the solitude became too much to handle at times.  

As a person that works in Customer Service, it has become more and more apparent that people are struggling.  In my interactions with people, poor communication skills that were once an occasional annoyance are now a common feature in calls.  

For example, too many people before the pandemic had the really bad habit of interrupting me as I was trying to answer their questions.  It didn't happen a lot, but now it happens on a much larger number of calls.  It doesn't sound like a big thing, but when you're trying to communicate really important things that will definitely effect them, many times I have to come back and highlight these issues so they don't do something that could cost them in the end.

But back to my original point.  Right now, and for all of these reasons, I'm exceedingly grateful to God that he is starting to deliver us from some of this craziness we've had to endure.  Currently (as I mentioned to my manager at work yesterday) I feel pretty "crispy".  Haha. Yeah, I'm a little burned out.

So I'm taking some time off!  Today is day one of NINE days off, and more days off next week as well.  I'll be visiting my buds in Spokane, one who turns 50 on Monday and where we will be planning to enjoy a little BBQ action for him and his daughter who both celebrate on the same day. I love that guy, he's becoming a bit of a celebrity there, and we were friends before he became locally famous. 😊

Now starts a true era of healing for me, and for us as humans.  Many of us are struggling, lonely, cooped up with family members for over a year, learning how to be social again, and some not desiring that social life any longer (not me, by the way).  Let's try to be very understanding and deliberate in how we interact.  We need to give each other a lot of grace as we re-learn how to be citizens, friends, and even family members to people we have not seen in a long time.

I plan to be very deliberate on how I control my feelings. I'm going to try to be kind despite how I may feel, especially if someone is trying my nerves, whether deliberate or not.  I'm going to always have a kind and honest word ready for people.  I'm going to try....  

And if YOU are struggling, please reach out to me.  Even if you think "Oh, it's not that bad, I'll be okay."  Well, let's not test that theory.  Based on my last post, I did that and (to an extent) didn't work too well for me. If you have my phone number, or if we're friends on FB, please reach out to me.  Or you can email me at amerigerman@gmail.com.  Please, even if you want to reconnect, it could be an encouragement to both of us.

I love you guys, let's have an incredible summer of fun with friends, and if you haven't already, please take this in the most humble way, please get vaccinated.  If we don't and the virus mutates (like the flu virus does every year), then we could be in for years of what we have just been through. And I know that nobody wants that.  Have a great day and may life return to normal for all of us very soon!