So Many Naked Faces

I went to Walmart Sunday morning, and before you tell me how terrible of an idea that was, I know. I also tried to plan the trip to be over before the after-church-crowd descended en masse.

Now that I'm vaccinated and cases have dropped in my area, I'm trying to make an effort to actually shop for my necessities instead of doing pickup... which is exactly how I came home with a package of mint Milanos (they are WAY better than the dark chocolate ones, oddly enough) but I digress.

In the 35-ish minutes I was in Walmart, I saw maybe a dozen masks, not counting employees or the one on my own face. Naked faces everywhere I looked. It made me uncomfortable. I understand, vaccine rates for people 16+ is over 60% and the mask mandate expired a week ago in Lincoln, people want to get back to normal.

But how did they do it so quickly? After a year of hiding in my apartment, masking up everywhere, and being extra vigilant about washing my hands, how did nearly everybody in a Lincoln Walmart on a Sunday morning appear as if the last year didn't happen? That we time hopped from January 2020 straight to May 2021?

Maybe their need to return to pre-Covid life overruled their worry about getting sick. Maybe their trust in the vaccine is unshakeable. Maybe they just don't give a damn and haven't since the beginning, they were just biding their time until the evil (science-trusting) mayor released us from masks.

Whatever their reasoning, it has made me wonder, how do I move on from pandemic days? In my mind, the pandemic is still happening and won't be over until the WHO says it is.

That doesn't mean I'm still locking myself away behind a moat of fear and hand sanitizer. I am going out and doing things, seeing select friends and family. But I am still trying to avoid large crowds, wearing my mask, and limiting my contact with strangers.

That nagging fear in the back of my mind remains.

I have shit luck (ask anybody anything about my car) and while virus breakthrough is hella rare with the Covid vaccine, it still exists. Plus, the variants are still out there and we don't completely know how effective the current vaccines are against those. Covid tends to hit harder the second time around and I really don't want to find myself on the wrong end of that metaphorical barrel because I needed to pretend that everything was back to "normal."

There is no "normal" anymore.

Maybe I should just chalk it all up to anxiety, take an extra dose of CBD oil, and get back to pre-Covid life.

I guess that brings up the real question: do I want to?