Striking13

I've been a bit grumpy and on edge this week. It's the 5 year anniversary of lockdowns. I don't really know what to say about it all. I've written extensively on the subject, even a book -- about what it was like to dissent from the outset. I feel tinges of rage at those who now, or perhaps 2-3 years into it all, pretend at dissent. We needed you then. There is broad recognition that school closures went on too long, and even some acknowledgement that lockdowns were ineffective and terrible human rights violations. The vaccine (and of course mandates - which people lost jobs over) have disappeared from public consciousness. I mean does anyone actually get that thing anymore? We are still reminded of masks, as any good leftist protesting about anything -- from Teslas and @DOGE to "freeing Palestine" to standing up for kids to be able to self ID as the opposite sex and take mutilating hormones -- dons one, still. It is the uniform of "good lefties" or what I would call the "unhinged." Which it always was really. There has been no denunciation of those that drove lockdowns and distancing and toddler masking. These public health bureaucrats should be run out of their jobs and never be allowed to set any policy (or "make recommendations") again. Randi Weingarten should not have any job that has any bearing on children's lives. Sure Fauci has retired. But people like Barbara Ferrer (LA) and Sara Cody (Santa Clara county) still hold their positions after destroying small businesses and locking kids out of school for a year and a half. And force masking 2 year olds and speech delayed toddlers and hearing impaired adolescents. This was state sanctioned child abuse from the outset. So forgive me, but the modest acknowledgement that maybe we went to far, brings cold comfort. I do not feel redeemed. I just feel angry, still, when I think about it. I mostly try not to. So many kids' lives were altered and harmed forever. So many milestones they can never get back. And if these were raised at the time (remember drive through graduations?) parents were mocked for saying those things mattered. They were Karens and racist and murderers and selfish for thinking any of that mattered and every stupid vilifying name the idiotic covid hysterics could think of. And then you have people like me & my husband -- of which there aren't too many -- who publicly dissented from the outset of lockdowns. You won't find anythink from me in March 2020 on Twitter because didn't use Twitter much then. Instead I was arguing with friends on Facebook which went about as well as you might imagine. I came to X to push back on lockdowns around April 2020. This changed the course of my life forever. My life is unrecognizable vs 2019. Lost lifelong friends, fractured family relationships, loss of professional reputation that persists, new home, new city and on and on. And even now, with acknowledgement that people like me were right, we are not un-cancelled. We make our own way. We are doing fine, for the most part. But no one has said: you were right, and we are sorry to have put you through hell. You can come back now, into the fold. So forgive me, I'm pissed off still. No amnesty for those who put these egregiously, horrific, anti-human policies in place. And no it was not "just in the beginning" -- it all lasted well over two years. And no amnesty for the everyday folks who cheered the policies and snitched on their neighbors. Or just stayed silent as they watched their friends and neighbors who dared resist get dragged through the mud. I'll never look at people the same way again. I will forever be distrustful. I won't forgive or forget, certainly not without a heartfelt apology. Mostly to the kids who were harmed. But to me too.