A Note from Jenny on this 5th Covid anniversary
If you’re not following Jenny on X, you’re missing out! (She’s also on Substack!)
Today, Jenny had some thoughts as we hit 5 years from the Covid pandemic:
It was 5 years ago today for our family that everything changed. Our small, private Christian school announced they would be closing for 4 weeks. We were waiting in a long line at Costco for toilet paper when we got the notification. It was raining that day, like it is raining today.
We watched in real time the world go insane. We watched family members and lifelong friends turn on each other. We lost jobs, we lost that school I loved, and I lost babies alone in a doctor’s office because actual doctors were afraid of my healthy husband.
I watched while the world told me I was the abnormal one for not thinking all of that was completely normal.
It wasn’t normal. I’m still upset about it. I still see the lasting effects on my children who went through it, and they’re the lucky, privileged ones.
But. I know for a fact I would’ve hidden the Jews during WWII. I know I would’ve boycotted the buses in Montgomery. I would’ve fought in the revolution, probably yelling at Hamilton to keep it in his damn pants while helping him write.
To know these things about yourself is quite centering. I’m not perfect by FAR and I make a LOT of mistakes, but fighting for our children, our future, and our freedom is not one of them.
So grateful to all of you amazing people who were there in the covid trenches with me. I wish none of it had happened, but I’m not sure I would take it back either because of the relationships that were forged or strengthened over the past 5 years.
And to Justin - thanks for being my rock, my shoulder to cry on, for laughing with me in the darkness, for forging my vax papers, for the 2 extra babies I wanted just to bring more hope and light into the world, and for writing a whole damn book just so I could feel less crazy. Love you forever. Thanks for taking the kids to school in the rain this morning so I could finish my Bible study. I will never take these beautiful little snippets of normal life for granted again.
Video from 5 years ago:
Rational Ground kept me sane during those years. It was so good to have a group of people across this country that recognized the madness and called it out. I lost friends, too. Was yelled at by some of my nurse colleagues who told me I should "know better" when it came to masking and shut downs. I was never so disappointed in my countrymen. Why were so few of us appalled by the labeling of our fellow citizens as "essential" and "non essential?" Why were so many just a-ok with the curbing of civil rights and the censorship? We showed the state just how easily we can be led. I'll never just forget about it all.
My absolute best to you both! Follow both of you on Twitter and enjoy your posts regularly. (Hope the same of you relative to mine, Jenny! I can be a little snarky regarding lunacy like masks, but I attempt to be centered and expository, and occasionally, even funny.) Anyway, "finding" people of like-mind during the great covid dumpster fire was an unexpected benefit. I look forward to enjoying it for a long time to come.