New Year’s Weekend 2022

‘I See Dumb People’.  I bought that mug years ago at a gas stop in Arkansas on the way to Oklahoma.  Sometimes I think certain places have more ‘dumb’ than others—like Arkansas or Oklahoma (ask my friend Marc about Arkansas, I’m an Okie so have some experience there).  The truth, dumb doesn’t have a local.   

The month of January is always a tough one.  I know it is for others too.  We are past all the pomp, color and craziness of the holidays.  Winter tightens her grip for the next several weeks.  Then, when you do as I did, start New Year’s Day with COVID…whatever strain that might be, it’s a whole new January bummer. 

I’m guessing its Omicron.  I started feeling bad Saturday night after watching my alma mater pull off a win over Notre Dame, barely—which is the way they normally do it.  I had a slight temp at 99.3.  Sunday was downhill.  Major achy, a headache that was off, then on, runny nose, that tickle in your throat and weakness, exhaustion, just wanting to sit and stare.  Our thoughts were—is it just a bad cold? Or flu? (I’ve had that shot too). Or is it COVID? (I am triple vaxed—my first shot being exacting a year ago).  My wife went to CVS looking for a test, none to be found.  The pharmacist said that since I was triple vaxed  if it is COVID, it will just be like a bad cold.  No shit Sherlock!  I started on Daytime and NyQuil which I swear make me feel weirded out as well.  I ended up not doing much for days just sitting around, then crawling back into bed. 

As I excused myself from a Zoom call on Monday a friend offered to drop by a COVID test kit.  Sure enough, I had the pink stripe next to the blue (made me think of the blue and red pill if you’re Matrix fans—and I’d often surmised, I’d swallowed both—which if you know the gist of the movie, I’ve felt I actually did both—seeing too much reality, then longing to float along in the matrix to numb myself—enough of that sidebar).  

I felt angry—no, more frustrated.  A lot at myself.  Others started asking “where did you get it?”  After overanalyzing the previous couple of weeks we saw there were at least a half dozen times we’d been with people ‘who’d been with people who got COVID’. With the little news I watched, it appears as if Omicron is ALL around us.  I am grateful for being triple vaxed which did keep me out of the hospital.  Because I was feeling so bad by Sunday, I didn’t want to go to a doc-in-a-box or certainly not the ER.  If I didn’t have COVID before, I’d likely catch it there.  

In conversations with my nurse daughter and a doc friend here locally, both confirmed that in the ICUs in Jackson and Williamson County Hospitals almost 100% of the beds were filled with the un-vaccinated.  Nurses and other healthcare workers are leaving their careers—exhausted and disenchanted as to why we helping career people ( I retired from over four decades in Social Work last February) choose the job in the first place.  Helping people is often a primary reason—even ‘stupid’ people.  In our current situation we see that there is even an arrogance in such stupidity.  Any one of us can be ignorant about any number of things.  Yet I can research, read, talk to those of experience and science and others I trust and become knowledgable—at least somewhat.  I said SOMEWHAT.  We never will know everything and those who think they do, are arrogant in their ‘dumbness’.  And it’s that arrogant choice that’s frustrating.  A decision to not vaccinate is making others sick, even killing others. Sound harsh?  Reality often is.  Also, I’m writing with a low temp (maybe a higher one in my heart and soul).  Then there are other personal reasons I get bothered. 

We watched a Netflix presentation on FAUCI over the weekend—watch it.  I personally was listening to him thirty-five years ago when I was on the front lines of the AIDS epidemic.   He is an intelligent, godly, good man, driven by service as well.  At one point when he was asked about those initial days of meeting gay men with AIDS he choked up and was asked why he had such a feeling response.  His quiet response was, PTSD.  During these last two years I too have been triggered recalling those early years of HIV/AIDS.  Fauci and his family received all sorts of death threats during those years…and again in these last two years with COVID.  On a much smaller scale I got letters telling me I was going to hell because I was trying to help these guys and their families. People were so scared that when I would go to the hospital to help a guy with his lunch, I’d later find the cold food tray sitting on the corridor floor…without a knock to tell me it had arrived.  On another occasion we were told we couldn’t continue to use a classroom because gay men were meeting in there during the week for fear we’d leave HIV in the room. The class member driving that fear was a nurse!  

When the first guy I personally knew was diagnosed HIV+ in January 1986 there was very little information to go on.  There was no Nashville Cares in fact, I was on the committee that resulted in Nashville Cares.  I and Gayle Powers, another LCSW, facilitated their first family support group.  One of my board member told me that under no circumstances would I do such.  I told him it was on my own time, yes I will.  In those early years, a HIV diagnosis was a death sentence.  Families were reeling and majorly isolated not telling anyone what was happening in the family.  They often didn’t know a son was gay, let alone HIV positive.  They feared even more isolation should they talk…and sadly that fear was often founded.  

The support group met in Kent’s home in East Nashville.  Kent had and was caring for guys who had been thrown out of their families.  He was a wonderful ‘guy next door’ sort of gay man…that later on took his own life.  He unbeknownst to most was also positive.  I had a tough time with his death.  I lost count of the number of men we helped that died.  I began to understand what it must be like to be in the military and have many of your battalion killed or as a civilian in a war zone and loose multiple family members to a bomb.  It’s called compounded grief.  A depth of grief hard to talk about or describe.  I went numb the winter of 1989 when several that I’d been close to died.  I slipped into depression in early 1990 thinking that the remainder of life would be more of the same. Watching FAUCI on Netflix brought back memories.  I will be praying more for Fauci who is several years older than I and still at it.  He is a true American Hero.  

I don’t talk much if at all about those years of AIDS.  People don’t know what to say or they have a look that asks “why DID you get involved like you did?” 

So yes I get a mess of feelings.  And rightly so when there is a way to prevent something and people don’t listen.  Then again as I read David in the Psalms most mornings—stupidity, dumb and arrogance have been around since the beginning of time.  And, is unlikely to change much. 

It is not the first time in my almost seventy-three years that I’ve been frustrated with similar circumstances.  As in the past, I ultimately cool off, chill out, or maybe it is I convert some of the energy of anger to get back in the fight for good.  Yet some days to get back into it also feels stupid when you look at the overwhelming amount of dumb.  Yet for me it is about being a part of chipping away toward the good.  Doing as much good as you can, anyway.  Hoping to help at least some. Even when others judge, question and mock.

So on this Tuesday, feeling really crappy with COVID, I write.  Some would say THIS is stupid.  Okay, I too have done stupid or dumb with some frequency.  I drink from the mug. 

I bear the marks of PTSD as well as the bruises of getting kicked around for doing things, caring for people who others thought they deserved what sickness they got—or God was sending punishment.  There are just natural consequences to behavior—no divine judgment at all.  

There are different gods if you’ve not figured that out by now.  The one I’ve grown in relationship with over these decades is driven by love…even when as HIS/HER kids are pretty darn dumb.  

I am FULL of gratitude for those who serve—particularly in heathcare but in all sorts of ways…law enforcement, public services, transportation…all sorts.  

Figure out what you might do to make THEIR lives a tad easier. 

Then, do it.