There Is No Turning the Corner, No Hump to Get Over

Waiting and wishing for a quick fix to the pandemic has always been magical thinking, and it’s time to face that truth

This is a line to get a vaccine that will have run out by the time they reach the end of it.

My parents and my mother-in-law are getting their first vaccine shots this week. We live in Georgia, one of the states that’s doing the worst at rolling out vaccines, and getting them appointments took every ounce of our patience and intestinal fortitude. Securing an appointment to get the vaccine that will help end the worst public health crisis of the last 100 years is more difficult than calling the cable company’s customer service number.

I tell ya: This country’s just firing on all cylinders right now.

The pandemic has been a destabilizing event in every aspect of American life, from finance to employment to health to entertainment to just going to the freaking grocery store, but what is often missed is what it has done most urgently: It has made us desperately worried about the people closest to us, the ones we see every day. Everyone always worries about the people they love; that’s a large part of what loving someone is. But for the first time in my life, I’ve had to confront, fact-to-face, every day, the very real possibility of a person I care about contracting a fatal disease. I do not want to…