i’m not old! and we used to have snow on the ground all winter and it would come more and more and we’d have enough to make snow tunnels and castles and then it started to rain sometimes and there wasn’t enough snow and it melted in between snowfalls and now it’s mostly rain and the evergreens are all falling down because their roots are shallow and the wind takes them down because the ground isn’t frozen and i would spend all day running through the woods with the under brush up to my shoulders and never see a tick but last summer i went into the woods for ten minutes and came out with five trying to climb my legs and i used to lie on the cool grass on summer evenings and watch the stars and the fireflies and you can’t anymore because of the ticks and it used to be almost as bright as day beneath the full moon with the light glittering on fields of fallen snow but now it is brown and grey and it just rains and it doesn’t snow enough even to go sledding. and i’m not old! i’m not even thirty and already i’m reminiscing with my mother of a time that is no longer? that much change over the last twenty years? the last ten? i’m sick with grief and the world keeps changing. you can never go home again and it’s because the centuries old seasons have disappeared. what kind of nightmare
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you know what boils my blood.
over the last 2 weeks, i've seen countless patients walk into my urgent care center, symptomatic for so many things, refusing to get tested for covid and flu, citing that they don't want to knowingly bring it to their holiday tables. i had a patient tell me, verbatim, "i don't want to test for covid, because i don't want to be the asshole who brings it on a plane."
i understand that - i understand that holidays are times where people look forward to meeting loved ones that they might only see once a year, or where they get a break from the hectic back and forth of their lives.
but here's the thing - whether they get tested or not, they will bring whatever they have to their holiday tables. it's pure recklessness to know that you're sick, and walk into someone else's house spreading the disease.
today, january 2, i saw 91 patients, many of them who have tested positive for covid and flu. many of these patients are the same ones who didn't want testing 3 days ago, until their events were over, and now, they will have to reach out to everyone they know to let them know that they were positive because they were showing symptoms well before their event.
the next week or two? we're going to see many, many more, all people with symptoms that started around christmas. these are the only two viruses we test for rapidly in our office, but they are potent and can be fatal in many people.
so here's why i wrote this post, and maybe it's a little late, but - if you care about your loved ones, please get tested if you know you're sick. it doesn't have to be at a clinic if you don't want it to, because the over-the-counter tests work just fine too (if you test within 5-7 days of symptom onset). just...please don't try to run from the knowledge that you might have covid, because immunocompromised people, elderly people, people with co-morbidities like asthma, pregnancy, diabetes, etc...many of them may not recover. and they may not be sitting at your holiday table in the future because of it.
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Prompt 329
Bruce was admittedly suspicious when Talia requests a meeting, and is admittedly still upset with the entire hiding Damian’s existence from him for literal years. But he also admits that he just… has to take a moment.
“Run that by me again please?” He had to have misheard, right? Or gotten drugged by something maybe.
Talia sighs, sounding just as tired as he felt. “Father’s tea supplier has moved to Gotham after an argument, and he wishes to discuss the agreement of him not entering the city- to speak with said vendor.”
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there are a lot of evil people in the world and a lot of darkness in the world and so it’s very important for me to stress that now more than ever is the time to spread kindness and compassion. combat the evil by not only not partaking in it, but actively refuting it. destroy the notion that being compassionate or generous or kind to someone is uncool or embarrassing or even scary. be the change you want to see. start a chain reaction. positivity only breeds more positivity. do an act of kindness for someone so that that person who is too afraid to do it themselves can see you, realize that they’re not alone, and perhaps sheepishly follow your example. and then the next person who is too afraid but sees that person can do the same. when bad news comes out about bad people or horrible atrocities in the world it’s such an easy impulse to despair, and obviously it’s important to feel what you need to feel. grieve. be angry. be sorrowful. be empathetic. but dust off your pants and get up and be a part of a chain reaction that, no matter how small the scale, and spread compassion and love and care. all the reasons why you might not—“it’s hard! it’s scary! people will make fun of me! it’s useless because there’s too much evil!” are all grade A arguments as to why you should. you have no idea how many people you could inspire to do the same. even if it doesn’t get you anyway far, you can at least say you have the nobility of trying. please choose love and please choose life. you are worth loving and you are worth inspiring others to love
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