So after ending 2021 with a polite and not unreasonable wish that we all learn to be thankful for small mercies and enjoy every sandwich, I traipsed into 2022 with my husband testing positive for Covid. His isolation was just about over, when I tested positive. This turn of events was at once so disappointing and yet predictable that I immediately came to terms with it without wasting any time blaming the Gods, my luck, destiny or the ill wind that blew this nonsense virus into our lives two years ago.
No sarcasm.
I literally shrugged, went "Welp, them's the breaks" and set about sanitizing everything I could see. I'm writing this from my bed, as I wait for a work call to begin, because Capitalism must have its due, and god forbid it acknowledges we're human before it hands us a pay-cheque. But all is not bleak. For one, third wave stress for me at least, is much lower than second wave stress. I don't feel like I'm dying, just tired. I'm not crippled with headaches, my throat doesn't feel like there's an axe-murderer hiding inside it and I don't have a temperature. It's more like Flu 2.0. Now With Added Fatigue! In other words, handleable. Not ooh-let's-Zoom-call-thrice-a-day handleable, but handleable with a few naps now and then.
And the biggest surprise during all this is how unsurprised I am by all of it. I hadn't made any resolutions for the New Year, because see, I've watched the complete 2020 and 2021 seasons of this show so plot twists are now old news for me. But had I thought of making one, I didn't think 'will handle potential garbage fire of a month with equanamity' would've been it. But here we are anyway. Betty White dies weeks before hitting 100? Oh well. Ostriches run wild through China? Been there, seen that, cracked a Jumanji joke on it. An Indian actor wastes everyone's time by butchering English syntax? Not even going to dignify that with a link, sorry.
No, I'll sit here, tearing up through the new season of Queer Eye and wait for the day my senses of smell and taste fully return, so that I can dive headlong into something with copious amounts of chocolate. Because life is long, Covid is around and you must have your cake while you can still taste it.