…is what one of my students said to me today. She’s 6. For all intends and purposes she does not remember a time before the pandemic. It is “still COVID” despite what her Escalade driving mother says.
This is just a post to complain. One of those yelling into the void screeds you gotta get one once in a while. Feel free to skip.
I’m an elementary school teacher. I’m new to my current school building, but have been a teacher since before lockdown. I take great measures to keep myself, and by extension my family, safe from the on-going pandemic. First and foremost by masking. Everyday I come to school in what I call “business casual black bloc”, which is just typical teacher clothes but with a black hoodie and an n95/kn95 with a neck gator over it. And my long hair makes me look either like I’m going to throw a Molotov into a police precinct or fix a printer.
Allow me to tell you some more things I’ve heard this school year so far.
“Oh I get it. My sister has lupus, so I’m really careful,” is what a colleague says. She then hugs a student with a visibly runny nose and dead eyes. She hugs two more zombie children after that.
“You’ve never had it?!” the music teacher asks me as I’m washing my dry and cracked hands for the 80th time today. I guess he hasn’t realized that he has never seen my mouth or nose before.
“I just HANDISIZED!” cries a disgruntled student. I told them to go wash their hands after they wiped their nose on their palm. They turn the sink on for 0.006 seconds. They get frustrated when I tell them to try again.
“My sister-in-law is a yoga instructor and she got these for free from when we were all still, you know, crazy about COVID,” is what the office secretary says as she hands me a box of Lululemon designer masks. I will never wear them. The cloth is all but translucent.
“My son is worried he’s doing something wrong,” a parent says to me. Their son asked about my mask. I told him I don’t want to get sick. The parents says their son is now worried they’ll get sick. You can see how this is my fault.
“Do you have a duffle bag?” the resource officer asks me, accusingly, in front of my class. A parent called to say a shifty looking man with a duffle bag and a mask came in the side door this morning. I have a duffle bag by my desk. It’s full of more masks.
“Haha I guess I still have a little brain fog that gets me sometimes,” an instructional assistant says. I have flashbacks to ten years ago, when my depression induced brain fog was so bad I didn’t leave my apartment for nearly a month.
“GRHSAAHHACK,” a student sneezes directly onto my water bottle.
“I could get a mask if you want,” another teacher says in the doorway of the secluded supply room where I eat my lunch. I tell them it’s fine as I feel peanut butter stick to the inside of my kn95 I hastily slapped on my face. It was a newer one too.
“No no! It’s just that, you know, we figured with your newborn you’d probably not be able to come,” says a colleague about the grade level team’s monthly outing to Applebees. Don’t worry, I don’t feel left out. In fact, thank you for not inviting me. I am morally opposed to Applebees.
Please don’t apologize. So many others have experiences like yours, and they all matter. I can completely empathize with the disappointment towards family members who are also healthcare workers themselves. I have several who quickly tossed their masks out in favor of “not letting the virus control their lives.”
These same people will wonder why they rarely see my children despite living a short distance away. They didn’t invite us to thanksgiving this year. Not that we would have gone, but not even a mention. They know we’ll say we’re not going to come over. And rather than being accommodating by hosting something outside during the day or at least video chatting a bit during dinner, they simply do not want to deal with it. It’s heartbreaking to me sometimes. To know that members of my own family would rather not be inconvenienced so more that they would pretend we didn’t exist.