Where YOUR Rights End

I'm masking again when I go into stores. Yes, I'm fully vaccinated, and I plan to get the booster in October or sooner, depending on advisories and availability. Mid October will be 8 months.

It's not so much that I'm afraid of it, at least not any more. I'm afraid of spreading it. I can be completely asymptomatic, unaware of any exposure, and still be completely capable of infecting a lot of others. I also don't want to harbor the virus and be the host where it mutates into something even worse than it is now.

My right to swing my fist has been legally defined as stopping before it hits your nose. Or any other body part. Probably your window too, but I haven't bothered to check. I'm not in the habit of swinging my fist, so it just doesn't come up. But I also don't have the right to refuse to do any of a number of very simple things to prevent spreading a frequently fatal disease just because "Freedumb!" Your fist now comes in the form of viral particles.

Unless you're one of the many people I love, I can't quite bring myself to care, any longer, whether you choose an act that can kill yourself. Or in this case, refusing an act that can stop you from killing yourself and others. Just get the FREE! vaccine unless you doctor says you in particular can't. Mask up around others, whether you're vaccinated or not.  Mask your kids who are too young to receive it yet. 

I will care about all those who have to deal with the aftereffects of your bad choices. I worry for the rescue folk who have to navigate the mountain crevasse because you were stupid on your hike. I worry for the health professionals who have to struggle to prevent countless unnecessary deaths after deaths after deaths. I ache for the family member who finds your body next to the gun. I feel sorry for those folks who run crematoriums and funeral homes who are overwhelmed by the load. I feel sorry for those who own animals and can no longer acquire the necessary dewormer because a flood of stupid human consumers cleared the shelves of it because they won't get vaccinated and don't know this will kill them faster. I mourn the teachers and students who die because preventative measures are refused by parents, school boards, or right wingnuts influencing school boards.

I fear for all of us who will need our hospitals in the present/future but no beds are available because they're filled with covid patients, and we can't get the lifesaving care we might need. I also worry that those hospitals go bankrupt because the high costs of covid hospitalizations are extremely high and not all of us are well insured.

But if you want to kill yourself, I'm no longer able to care about you. You have the right to do so, I suppose. You don't have the right to take others along with you, to endanger others, to break their hearts, to devastate them financially, to even try to make us care.

If only you could just all get together and go away quietly. Because as much as I'd wish it, as much as I try not to care, I'm still the kind of human who can't quite be that indifferent. I just wish you were too.