BLOG: IS IT WORTH IT?

I was pretty vocal early on about the wave of Covid badness heading our way, yelling at people to take the warning signs seriously. Friends and family who were still carrying on as normal in February and March last year all ended up on the receiving bulb of my ire. 

We visited my daughter's in-laws the weekend before the first lockdown, and we were shocked by how oblivious they seemed to what was looming. All the while we were trying to engage in the small talk, when down in London another of our kids was showing Covid symptoms, and self-isolating at her uni. 

Remember how surreal that time was? How scary? The empty supermarket shelves. The quiet streets. The not knowing how deadly this thing was. The panic. 

I've been a member of a couple of Covid Reddits ever since the very first days of the pandemic. When I joined, there were just a few thousand members. Now there is close to 100,000 in one and 2.5 million in another. For the most part, they've been really solid communities of people who took Covid seriously. 

I've checked in every evening for the reaction to the latest figures, due to there being a number of people on there who were able to decipher them, compare them against recent trends, and basically just enlighten the news in a way that most media outlets don't have the time or inclination to do.

Anyway, over the past few weeks, since the Covid restrictions lifted in the UK, more and more members are saying goodbye to the group. They're no longer checking the daily figures, and want to get back to something approaching how life used to be lived before this nightmare began. They want to try living in a Covid world, rather than just existing in one.

I never thought I'd say it while cases are still as high as they are, but I'm in kind of the same place now. I've gone from being ultra-cautious... to craving the way things were, and accepting we need to live alongside Covid. 

We basically never left the house in 2020, and for most of 2021, but over the past month or so we've begun going out and doing things, and seeing people, and I've noticed that it has made me feel better. 

I was scared at first. We went to the pub with friends, then did a day trip to the Science Museum, both of which were absolutely heaving. I was convinced I was going to get something. Not necessarily Covid, but just a cold or... whatever. But with the masks and the hand sanitiser and the not taking unnecessary risks, we've thus far been okay. As have those we went with.

When we did get Covid it was because our daughter brought it home from school, not because somebody had coughed near us in a supermarket. 

We've seen family, seeing more friends this weekend, and... socialising again has made me realise how much I missed seeing people. Not just people, but seeing something other than the inside of my house or a supermarket. And now I don't want to go back to how we were living before, and I say that as one of those people who LOVED that first lockdown. 

Sanja and I have had Covid. Quite a few of our family has had Covid. We know what it's like. Fortunately, nobody we know has died from it - the closest we've come was the guy who ran a minimart at the bottom of our road, and a friend's father. Both elderly people. 

But we've been double-vaxxed, we wear masks indoors, we hand sanitise like we've an unlimited supply... in short, we don't take necessary risks. We do what we have to in order to offset some of the anxiety about catching Covid. Having been through our own journey over the past 18 months, we're able to weigh up the benefits of clawing back some degree of normality versus the downsides of getting Covid. 

Again. 

Or spreading it to somebody we care about. 

And I guess, we've reached the point where, having accepted that Covid isn't going to go away, ever, and that the vaccines won't eradicate it - just lower significantly the chances of getting really sick from it - we don't want to keep hiding away for the rest of our lives. I hate to say it, but it might be the only thing I've ever, and will ever, agree with Boris Johnson about. If not now... when? Covid is here to stay. Our world has changed fundamentally. I've come to accept that, and stopped waiting for it to magically go away. 

The big test for me - and I know it's something some of you are weighing up with regards to the imminent Digi Live - will be whether we still go and see Marillion in November. It's two nights. One of them is seated, which I'm kind of okay with, but the other is a standing show, and the idea of being shoulder-to-shoulder with people does still give me pause. 

Obviously, it's also going to depend on where we're at in terms of cases and variants, and all of that. But at the current level, if it stays roughly around where we're at, I'd probably take the chance. It's like... I wouldn't do bungee jumping ever. Unless, say, there was, I dunno, £500 waiting for me at the end of it. 

It's the same decisions we, as individuals, have to make every time we do a thing these days; it's it worth it... to me? And it might be that this is now a question we must ask for the rest of our lives, whenever we want to do something. 

Paul