I’ve been quiet – purposely so. It’s been quite a hard time for me – but compared to so many I haven’t anything to complain about. I’m not invalidating my own worries and mental health, but figured that not moaning online about it all was the least I could do.
Back when I last posted in May, my overriding worry was that I wouldn’t get home to my family this summer – it really did consume me.
Well, I’m home now. I have been here for 13 days which means that tomorrow we get to break out of self-quarantine. It was all a lot easier than I thought it would be; for a while when the EU first brought in a travel ban on passengers from the US, I thought it was done and was very, very down. Turns out, though, that the restriction didn’t apply to travel to Ireland or the UK for me, and although I had to fly out of a different airport 5 hours away, it meant we could get home.
Please note that I have been really vigilant all through this – I was the one not allowing my kids to see their friends long after everyone else thought it was all right, and have been nowhere but the supermarket for 4 months. New York state as a whole has really beaten this virus, and in particular our county had not had any active cases for weeks. The girls and I were tested before we came, and I had my parents tested too. In Northern Ireland, daily cases are around 5 or less, and there have been no deaths in the whole country since the 12th of July. As mandated by the Irish and UK governments, we filled in tracking and locator paperwork, and have self-isolated for 14 days. We wore masks from the moment we got on the shuttle bus to the airport, all through the flight, all through the coach trip from the airport, until we got into mum’s house – an 18 hour journey. Please, I do not want to hear anything about being selfish or irresponsible because that is not the case. My journey was pretty necessary for a number of personal reasons, and I for one am very glad to be out of the US and feel much safer here.
The US feels like a different world now. People here and around Europe in general are still being careful, but there is an out-of-the-woods feeling – at least for right now. There is the knowledge, perhaps even the expectation, that things could get bad again, but there are measures and preparations in place. A bit like NY really, which seems to be one of the small beacons of light, hope, and sense in the middle of that clusterfuck. The selfishness of a certain type of person in places like Texas and Florida should shock me, but it doesn’t. Having lived there nearly 20 years now, all the US seems to me is a rich 3rd world country – almost proudly backwards and ignorant, and steeped in tradition and superstition (religion). The handling of the pandemic has shown the rest of the world exactly what they are, and it’s not pretty.
The measures they needed to take were pretty clear – and there was a roadmap from other European nations to follow who were several weeks ahead on their curves. But no. Oh no, no, no. Individualism and freedom at all costs, but no responsibility. Like a bunch of fucking whining toddlers.
Let’s see how long it finally takes the US to get this under control, and how much the lag ends up being. So much winning, right?
