COVID Guests are the Worst

COVID hosts are worse-er

Let’s face it: Normal is now. This is it.

There will be no flip of the page. It’s been more than 6 months of lockdowns, reopenings, reclosures, too soon, too late, no school, back to school, and oozing sanitizer from everywhere.

It's all the feels. Like Billy Joel, we didn’t start the fire 🔥, but we’re fighting it. 2020 has been a tough cookie.

We all need to get out and have interaction of some sort in order to stay sane.  

People are traveling again. Those able to get away are scooping up airBNBs and taking their calculated risks in planes, cars, or whatever, to do what they need to do. No judgment here. 

Our first travel adventure, AKA sanity trip, was to see my sister and her family, to whom I owed a visit and wanted to connect with. She is in the outskirts of a major city a few hours away and fit the bill perfectly for our first safe expedition out into the world. They were in their bubble and we would join.

We drove, from point A to point B, feeling excited and meh all at the same time. We were welcomed by warm hugs and tired faces. 

I had not known, or was too excited to give any weight to the fact, that they had also been sequestered and working (essential industry) with their teenage kids in the house all that time. 

Our visit was a great bookmark, something to partition the time, but not the same respite we were expecting. 

We had a wonderful stay, shared, bonded, and also learned some lessons. Those lessons came in handy when we were on the other side, as COVID hosts.

Fast forward a couple of months and we were still in this. Being careful, we accepted a visitor (guess we fit the bill), and a visit ensued. It was lovely, but man, it was challenging to be a host while on COVID fatigue.

And this presented another set of challenges: What are your safety thresholds? If they differ from those of your guests, challenging talks may be appropriate.

Illness cares nothing for feelings. That's hard to reconcile when respecting the time-honored bounds of guest and host expectations. Especially in our Puerto Rican family, where nothing prevails above familial bonds. Except maybe germs? 

When I imagine people cooped up in their homes, I visualize chattery teeth hopping around with little ticking time bombs attached to the tops. That's what COVID life can sometimes look like. It’s how a lot of us have been living and feeling. 

The natural healthy recourse, the prescription for our malaise, is exactly what we have to keep away from: human connection.

I thought of my sister.

How could we have been kinder guests? How could we have been more mindful of how she was feeling and what she was experiencing?

Asking deeper questions on how she and her family were doing and what their visit expectations were would have been helpful.

My sister got flowers out of the blue. Little does she know that only now do I truly understand how hard it was to smile and keep enthusiasm some of those days. 

Illustration by : Kristia Benthien

We actually do know what others are going through now. Not all of it, but at least some. Be kinder, better to each other. Let's make normal better than it was.

*Takes a Break strongly urges you to stay informed on the latest COVID news and keep living each day to the best and fullest.

Cheers!