It’s nice to see the Lansdowne parking lot jam-packed with students’ cars. It’s nice to see bus shelters full of circulating students. The sun was out on September 7, 2021. On the surface, for a moment—just for a moment—it felt normal.
But it wasn’t.
We are back. But I don’t know what else to say anymore.
As I write this, I’m in the wait queue to get my vaccine card. The wait time is 47 minutes. That’s not as bad as I was expecting. Waiting is a privilege, and that’s why we spend so much of our lives doing it.
But the waiting is giving me time to think as well as time to write. And I’m thinking about how someone in my life cannot get vaccinated for medical reasons. They are in the small percentage of the population who have a legitimate medical reason for not being vaccinated, and as of September 13, they will be, essentially, on lockdown again.
I don’t know what to say anymore.
Cases and vaccination numbers are high. If I stay home, I’m fighting my instincts that tell me I have to at least try. If I go out, I’m fighting my instincts that tell me I know better. Like most people, I got my shots, stayed home, and washed my hands until they were dry and blistered as elephant skin. It’s been a year and a half. I don’t know what to say anymore.
I have no encouraging words of strength and valour, no utterances of pity and cynicism. It is what it is. I’m depressed, because there is no way to win when we divide ourselves according to our political beliefs at a time when we need to come together. There is no way to win when swastikas get held high by an anti-vaccine protestor at parliament, and, worse, news outlets give it air time. And yet here I am, giving it even more media attention.
Things have changed. We used to honk our horns at 7 pm when the nurses and doctors finished their shifts. Last week, a nurse was spat at by a protestor. Anger is a coward’s emotion.
We’ve endured, and we will endure more, I suppose. Stay safe on campus, and stay respectful.
Aside from that, I don’t know what to say anymore, perhaps because there is nothing left to say.