So, yesterday, I did a thing.
I posted a gif on Facebook of a man who is talking about how 70 – 700 people dying so the US economy can rally is acceptable. The off camera person said… so… 70 is the number that’s okay? Man: yeah… 70. Off camera: Let me show you 70 people.
70 people in that man’s family came around the corner of the street.
When he realized that there were 70 people who were in his family and that 70 suddenly had faces and relevance his numbers changed.
Was it staged? Um… Duh.
Was it to make a point that every single one of the “acceptable losses” is a person? Um… duh.
I’m so tired right now. I’m so incredibly tired.
A friend of mine from elementary school commented on the picture.
But on the other end of this horrible double edged sword, is the awful fact that's thousands have not received a penny of unemployment in 7-8 weeks or more. These folks are losing their businesses and not even being able to afford food.. terrible situation whole way around. 
<because… again… duh… it’s not like I don’t know that too… and I KNOW those faces as well> and I answered… I answered because I’m tired. I am so sick and tired of all of the bullshit. ALL of the bullshit.
I know. I really do know. And I’m terrified of the way the economy is and the way it is heading and I hate the way the country is handling this so incredibly horribly compared to EVERYWHERE else. But people are very very cavalier with “eh… 70 to 700 deaths are acceptable as long as it fixes everything ” (which it isn’t going to fix everything like people believe. there is no magic bullet in this case) until they are faced with the acceptable losses being THEIR losses.
Would all 70 acceptable losses be in one family? Not likely. But people don’t put faces to the acceptable losses they keep throwing around. People use a tone of voice when they talk about acceptable losses… like… Yeah… whatever… a few more dead people… so what… pffft
I have family in the same situation… where they don’t have an income and they are waiting and waiting and waiting for stimulus checks and unemployment that feels like it will never come. But I also speak as someone who cavalierly gets lumped into that big giant “Eh, F$%^-em let them die so the economy can be as fabulous as it’s ever been” feeling you get from seeing people talk about acceptable losses. Three people who live in my house would very likely die if any of us got Covid.
I guess that’s three from someone else’s house that wouldn’t have to… but still… I’ve had it right up to the eyeballs with hearing about how it’s “only” the elderly and vulnerable who are likely to die so what’s the problem.
I’m tired of spending 12 – 14 hours a day sitting in my office at my computer busting my butt working only to be made to feel like a drain on society.MY point in this is… every acceptable loss is someones family… someone’s brother, sister, son, daughter, mother, father, best friend….
I want desperately for people to be able to go back to work and to be safe. But I want people to be safe. I want people to not have to get shot in the face for telling people to put on a mask. I want people to not get spit on for asking someone to please stand 6 freaking feet away. Hell, I don’t want people close to me than that when it’s not this fugly mess and I will deliberately run into assholes in the store before all of this if they ride my heels with a cart or shove their smelly armpits in my face because they HAVE TO HAVE THAT whatever that happens to be where I’m shopping and they can’t wait the 45 seconds it’s going to take me to get my whatever from where they HAVE TO BE.
I’m tired.
I’m tired of bullshit.
Everyone else gets to go “LOOK LOOK LOOK at what those assholes in the <whatever political party they are “against” and are HATING… and I’m so flipping sick of the hating> are doing to make the whole FU#$%^& world so much FU#$%^& worse than anyone else in the whole FU#$%^& world could make it!!!!!”.
I Just thought maybe people might need to be reminded that every acceptable loss matters to someone somewhere…
or maybe not
I was good. I didn’t reply right away. Probably should have. If I had done anything at the time, I probably would have just taken the post down… because I don’t make waves and I don’t voice my political opinion because I’ve been bullied my whole life and I really don’t need to provide more fodder for people to use to take pot shots at me.
But I am tired.
I’m tired and I’m scared and I want about 2/3 of the time to go sit with my back against my favorite tree at the park and wrap myself in the throw I’ve been working on for years and cry until the tears won’t come any more.
This whole mess has taken its tole on my house.
Squirrel is so on edge most of the time and she is facing the knowledge that her girlfriend can only handle the good times and can’t handle it when Squirrel falls apart. She is facing friends that have already told her that, if she wears a mask to school or around them for any reason they will make fun of her. She just started Humera… added to the other two immunosuppressants… you know what… Covid hunts people like that down. Would she die? Statistically probably not. But that’s a chance.
Monkey Butt has started to shoulder the responsibility for keeping the rest of the house from going completely bat shit crazy. HE (my jaded son who has hated humanity for years) has started to hunt for the bright sides to show that it’s probably really not so bad.
Bear? Hospice. I’m not handling that really well, either. Hospice makes it really really real. Last night we <all four of us> went to Lowes. It was the first time Bear had been inside of a store in over two months. I needed fence to keep my dogs out of my garden and I needed containers to grow some of my plants in… and I needed soil for in those containers… I needed stuff to work on my witchy SHTF prepper stuff outside so I don’t have to worry quite so much about what is coming… and to keep us as healthy as we can be inside our walls. I needed Monkey Butt because bags of garden soil are heavy. Squirrel needed to get out of the house because… she hasn’t been venturing out even when I have made my panic filled ventures out into the craziness. And Bear needed to be out. He needed to be out and where people outside of the four of us (and his hospice nurse Dave) are. The last time we were at a store together, he pushed the cart. Yesterday he drove my truck, but he needed his wheelchair because he knows his legs won’t carry him even with the cart through the store. It’s getting that real. What would Covid do if it came into my house?
And me? I am just tired of the stupid things that people do to each other. I’m tired of people ridiculing the choices we have had to make. I don’t LIKE doing a half marathon virtually with a mask on. I don’t like being terrified every time I walk into a store that is full of people who have apparently decided that the current situation is an excuse for them to let their asshole flag fly high and proud. I have been loudly and publicly ridiculed and laughed at in a Walmart isle because I chose to have a mask and gloves (and because losing 50 pounds has messed with my ability to maintain feeling warm) and a hoody on a 50 degree day. I’m trying to keep up with everything in the house. I’m trying to hold it together because Bear can’t handle it when people lose it in front of him… so I hold onto my control as long as I can until I can’t any more. And I spend hours at my computer working because I do still have a job to “go” to and I need to keep that job. I try so hard to down out the TV when it’s on because everyone talks about acceptable losses and how it is “only” (except when it’s not only) the elderly and vulnerable and fragile who are at risk any way. I’m one of the at risk. I take my own immuno-supressants and I qualify for elderly. Would it kill me? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. I know that I’m feeling very lost and very scared and I struggle a lot of days just to make it through the day without falling completely apart.
But suddenly I don’t understand both sides (either side) because I’m trying to point out that NO ONE anywhere seem to be faking the attitude that would feel better when they talk about acceptable losses. I guess when you talk about it in terms of acceptable losses it depersonalizes it. Like when you talk about the HUGE numbers of people who are struggling to survive the devastating unemployment numbers. Like when you see cars lined up at food distribution centers. We get to see the faces of the nurses and doctors who are saving lives. We get to see the faces of some of the people who have beaten it. And those faces give my hope. They are a very good thing. But there are faces behind every number that gets thrown around. The numbers of people working devastating hours in what currently amounts to nearly a war zone at stores (if three people can shoot a guard for saying you have to wear a mask and you are in the position of working in stores like that IT DOES AMOUNT TO A WAR ZONE). The numbers of families (mothers, fathers, children) who are facing another day without money… without food… without <in a lot of cases> hope. THOSE are faces too. They aren’t numbers. They aren’t statistics. THEY ARE FACES!!!
I guess I will leave my soap box now. Will it do any good? Will it matter? Yeah, probably not. But it did clear my head a little and give me a voice through witch to scream.
Love and Light
AprilJoy
5/11/2020
A Figment Of Fitness 