My family is the same way. My high risk grandma has been threatening suicide for a few months due to feeling too alienated. She doesn’t live by herself but they’ve basically quarantined her for her own safety. So this thanksgiving most of the family said “fuck it” and are going out of state for a large thanksgiving meal. Grandma (along with the vast majority of the family) knows covid is real but is absolutely thrilled to see family regardless.

Granted all the food will be outside, people will be separated and wear masks until it’s time to eat, and everyone has to get tested the weekend before. Get a positive test and you’re banned. So they’re trying to be safe, but… obviously this isn’t the safest option at their disposal.

I can relate to needing a fucking break though. I’m still pissed that Fauci and the health department sent mixed messages at the start of this and didn’t pay for people to quarantine for 3-4 months. Maybe we wouldn’t have to deal with the emotional and social issues of a long term off and on again quarantine if the people in charge didn’t do bull shit half measures. Funny enough, I have a few family members that take this plague even more seriously than I do, (ordering all groceries online, only going outside when absolutely necessary), and they’re still going. Of course you can’t bring up the recent spike in cases, that’s frowned upon.

I mean, I can definitely understand being alienated from one’s family and desperately longing to reform the extended family even for a few hours during a state-sanctioned nationalistic celebration.

I don’t blame people for saying “Fuck it, I’m home for the holidays”.

But… like… wear a mask. Wash your hands. Avoid high traffic venues. Drive if you can, rather than flying. Meet outdoors and make at least a modicum of effort to distance. If you feel feverish, reconsider staying home.

Christ, show your family that you give a shit. Don’t be the one that spreads the disease to the rest of the people you say you love.

no wonder the US’s first wave never ended

If the Soviet Union had won these people wouldn’t exist. Their parents/grandparents would be in a mass grave beyond the walls of a gulag in fucking Colorado and I’d have healthcare.

“Jesus take the wheel” / “If I die, it’s God’s will.”

a context for this sentiment is, you’re about to maybe die, so you’re making peace with the unknowable in that final second. whomst among us hasn’t visualized valkaries escorting us to valhala while bringing down our war mace onto the skull of our enemy chieftan?

but if you’re expressing this sentiment and laughing in the face of the abyss at the thought of breaking bread with nana and pop pop, you might just be in the tailspin of death cult.