While there are those under 40 who see dealing with Covid as a unique, no-one-else-has-had-to-deal-with-this-before thing, while bemoaning this is not the norm, those who grew up in the 50s with the Polio epidemic with friends wearing leg braces or being whisked away to iron lungs, buying Christmas cards by some artist encased in an iron lung who painted with his brush between his teeth, avoiding any still, standing water, “polio water”, and all the precautions we had to observe until we got the vaccine (It amazes me that anti-vaxxers will point to no polio as a reason vaccines are unnecessary).
Then came AIDS with all its precautions, Condoms, safe sex, celibacy. Still waiting for the vaccine and cure for that one. Loved ones open and secret died usually alone in the hospitals to which the dying person’s significant other was barred by families who long aggo through therir member out, society referring to all sorts of perversions as the Gay people deserved what we got.
And now Covid.
We went from exaggerated cleanliness, to condoms and controlled touching, now masks and distancing. Live long enough, and the unique and “only us” fades.
When our parents were starting families there was polio to deal with.
When their parents were starting families there was the “Spanish” flu.
When their parents were starting families there was Typhus.
That is one medical crisis each generation with an overlap, I.E. Typhus to the 1919 flu, the 1919 flu to polio, polio to AIDS, AIDS to Covid, with the Baby Boomers winning the lottery of getting three overlaps with one ongoing, not just two medical crises in their lifetimes.
Those same generations faced major global wars, with the Boomers facing an involuntary draft to fight a made up, old guys’ war upon high school graduations.
For each generation their trials were unique to them, its form and existence changing. Something was going to happen, but no one knew what until it hit.
Every generation has “had it rough”. What is unique to each is how they faced it.
In 1919 people cooperated with the science as known, no matter how inconvenient, without making it the object of politics.
When the wars hit, some people went to fight them while those on the home-front made whatever inconvenient sacrifices were required and found ways to deal with conditions in a positive way.
My Aunt still makes War Cakes which do not include milk, butter, or eggs as ingredients because during war you had to get used to not having those thngs as readily as at other times, and they survived without.
There is no oppression if, because of circumstances, a person must settle on a Dunkin Donut rather than that complicated multi-infused donut from down the street, and, more importantly, about which no one wants, or need, to hear the lamentations.
Suck it up.
Wear a mask.
Avoid crowds and large home gatherings.
Work to help slow and the conquer the virus and its time will run out. Don’t Follow the behavior suggested by science, and the reason you will still be complaining about it in the future is because you allowed it to stay around.
You can complain about the needs-oil light on the dashboard for as long as it makes you feel good to do so, or you can knock it off and end the car’s needing oil by putting some in it.
This may be your first rodeo, but it is not the first,for everyone nor will it be the last.
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