Friends, Family, and COVID

I took some extra time thinking about today’s post. I craved a break from politics, negativity, boosters, and tests. I needed to pause my feelings of frustration and anger towards our leaders. I wanted to get closer to home, to what should matter the most.

Our universe used to be limitless. We traveled for work, play, visit, and sometimes just to explore. We were fearless as we went about our lives without a paper covering for our faces and social distancing was only a concern for chaperones at middle school dances.

We knew there was a risk in everything we did, but we weighed that risk against our want or need for the activity. The decision in risk management was ours, and there were very few external restrictions on us. It was called free to live our lives.

Our circle of friends has been drawn in, and unfortunately, some relationships did not survive our political differences. We used to be able to have conversations about our differences. This was an excellent way to learn about each other and expand our views, but now those differences are toxic.

Real friendships will survive while the superficial will fade away. This is a case where quality surpasses quantity by far. Two years with varying degrees of isolation, we have realized who and what is most important to us, and we will hold onto and cherish our new inner circle.

COVID has taken a much greater toll on the family. Political ideologies had created a crack in the family tree of America. COVID took that crack and inserted a wedge. It has been hammering that wedge deeper for over two years. Some of the trees could not survive and fell under the attack. America is tough and resilient, but the pain of broken families is challenging for even her to endure.

The divisiveness of the four years of the Trump administration started the divide. Depending on where people got their news, they either saw the progress of Trump or the evil of Trump. They either got the facts of the many gains we realized during the Trump Presidency, or they saw him as a threat to our Democracy.

The media, especially the mainstream media, poisoned this country. Their manipulation of the facts and political bias turned family members against each other. If you want to find a villain in the last two years, look no further than MSNBC, CNN, and the Networks. It was not only what they reported but what they ignored that did the most damage.

The day of reckoning has come for Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo, and soon Joy Reid, but the damage they did to the families of America may last forever. Sisters and Brothers who no longer speak because they are on opposite sides of the fence have been amplified by the COVID-19 Pandemic. Isolations, quarantines, vaccinated, unvaccinated are situations and labels that have come between us all reinforced by a President who said he was a unifier, not a divider. He conned half a nation. The other half holds him responsible.

We have endured two years of canceled holidays, postponed celebrations, missed seeing our grandchildren grow up. We have put too much faith in politicians who can give a speech better than analyzing data. We have a medical community that changes its story depending on who applies the most pressure. These experts have destroyed their credibility, which was all they had with the American public.

Livelihoods, friendships, and family have been the victims of a system that failed us. When the motivation for getting through this Pandemic should have been the people, the power steered these so-called experts. It is only about the power, their power, and self-preservation for politicians. You can feel the end of the line for the people of America and the world. We want our freedoms back, and we want to live our lives knowing the risks. We want to gather what is left and get back to what we know as normal. It is time. It is past the time.