[27%] Fucking parents

[flexagon]

Pun intended. Damn it. All my delicate, bespoke, artisanally-created, unfair-but-working covid arrangements are lying in smithereens because BOTH my non-marital partners have KIDS WHO ARE GOING BACK TO SCHOOL oh my god. So much for that.

I don't fault either of them, but I'm plenty angry with the world. All that planning, all the endless difficult conversations with their associated damage to friendships, were intended to create a structure that would hold through spring. But no. My calendar is now upsettingly covered in post-its just to track what's going on with kids, travel, vaccines. And in short: April is going to suck after the 3rd, and then much later there's one magical weekend that the stars align and I get to see everyone in approximately the way I have been, and then May is going to be bleak indefinitely until enough shots have happened to the right people.

(At least the bug and I are on the same page about allowing 1:1 unmasked contact between two vaccinated people. Vaccines won't give me Madonna concerts or group acro classes but they will let me hug some of my friends, and be physical with partners.)

I tried so hard to hold it together, but nothing can stand against children. Their cultural primacy gives them the destructive force of any number of trains jumping tracks, or sharks, or both. You got me good this time, kids, yes you did.

Comments

[ckd]

I'm so sorry. There's already too much disruption in the world and you didn't need more of it.

[flexagon]

Nobody really needs more, and yet the world is bound to heave as it slowly wakes back up. Sigh. I'll cry and get through it, like always. Thank you for being kind.

[meat_and_breath]

Kids are the worst. I only have one non-cohabitating partner, and the amount of stress and communication that we've had to do around my kids being in school and the risk factors of her housemate (and her constellation) are ridiculous. I'm so sorry your hard-won plans got fucked up by reality.

[meat_and_breath]

CW: it's better news for me

D (my 15-year old) is now in school 50% time and is likely heading back 100% time in April. But E's housemate is going to start working from her office (alone, seeing patients on zoom) and is willing to stay multiple days at her partner's house so that E and I can get some time together. But even more exciting, the other higher-risk person in her constellation just got their first shot, and everyone agrees that once that person is vaccinated (and maybe me?), we can drop the restrictions on E and I seeing each other. <3

[flexagon]

Excellent! I WANT things to be better for my friends. And I, too, will get to drop restrictions once vaccines occur for me and partners. You should become eligible on 4/5, I think, based on the current rules about BMI?

https://www.mass.gov/info-details/covid-19-vaccinations-for-individuals-with-certain-medical-conditions

[meat_and_breath]

Correct. My January stress eating almost put me at a high enough BMI to have two comorbidities (BMI and Diabetes), but I do in fact only have one. So I'll be up early on 4/5 trying to book an appointment.

[meat_and_breath]

Also, it sounds like everyone in my constellation is willing to drop restrictions once I'm vaccinated and the other moderate- to high-risk person is vaccinated, so I don't even have to wait for everyone. I maybe don't even have to wait for me to get vaccinated; that part was a little unclear.

Basically, the highest risk chain looks like this:

D (in school in person) Me (lives with D) E (partnered with me, not cohabitating 😢 ) M (housemate to E, fully vaccinated) N (partner to M, mostly not cohabitating) R (somewhere in N's constellation?; at risk; has first shot scheduled)

So M, whose concerns are the primary driver of our restrictions and who is proxying for her network, is now mostly concerned about transmission of a severe case to R. R being vaccinated creates a major reduction in risk. Me being vaccinated creates a smaller, but maybe still important (?), reduction in risk. R's appointment just got scheduled, so discussions are still ongoing.