I’m in the car before it really dawns on me what I’ve done. I’m participating in one helluva science experiment. The end result of which I hope will mean life will return to some sort of normalcy. I doubt it, but I can hope. At home, I kiss my wife. She’s proud of me for going out in public. I think she is.

She is already on the other side. Vaxxed, and ready for me to join her. Ready for me to understand how she feels safer out there interacting, and how I should stop panicking every time she goes for a run. I want to be there too. I open my laptop, and click through my work e-mails. I have a meeting to go to in a few minutes.

I’m on the patio deck. It’s upstairs overlooking the alley between our place, a bank parking lot, and the backside of a restaurant. The sun is setting behind the not-so affordable mixed-use town home that went up last year, likely for the sole purpose of stealing the evening sun away from me. My phone is propped up on the overturned milk crate that makes for a fairly effective side table. A can of beer in a coozie is cracked open, and sweating as the weight of the heatwave that has reached even as far west as the coastline just begins to slip off the edge of this land for the evening.

I’m reading “Becoming,” by Michelle Obama. It has been a fun, leisurely read so far. I’ve traveled through the former First Ladies youth, her trajectory through Princeton and first year as a lawyer in downtown Chicago. As the daylight around me begins to fully commit to dusk she meets Barack Obama. The better part of the chapter explains why he was so appealing, but maybe not for her. Until the chapter’s end when they share a kiss out in front of a Baskin-Robbins in Chicago’s Hyde Park.

Stone Creek Campground sits just above the mountain tourist town of Idyllwild, California at 6000 feet of elevation. It’s a simple campground with basic amenities found in Mount San Jacinto State Park. The sites are big and private. Hiking trails leave right from the camp. Plenty of pine and manzanita trees offer spots for your hammock, and it’s only a few hours from most of the metro areas in Southern California.

By late July last year I had spent more than 40 nights in a tent or car camping. Any other summer, any other year, a quick weekend trip would be a no brainer, but under the shadow of COVID-19 even something as seemingly socially distanced as camping seemed like it could be fraught with danger. Leaving the house anytime has been anxiety heightening. Not only because of the danger of contracting the virus, but even considering the ethicalness of potentially passing the virus unknowingly.

COVID-19 is more insidious than just getting us sick. It is creating a buffer of fear between patients and their doctors. This essay describes the emotions felt when confronted with symptoms that pre-COVID would have inspired a visit to the doctor, but now are ignored.

An essay on being risk averse while job seeking during the COVID-19 pandemic by author Ryan Woldt. An Opinion Editorial previously published on LinkedIn. Photo Credit: @avirichards via Unsplash.

Can the novel coronavirus pass through tears? I’m asking for a friend, and examining what it means that the tears seem to flowing more freely than normal during a pandemic. Title image from The Office (NBC)