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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

<strong> According to my internal counter, it's day 355 of the pandemic and there are some signs of returning to normalcy. But, returning to normalcy is filled with anxiety for me.</strong> I've wanted for so long to do normal things like go to a concert or just the neighborhood bar or sit INSIDE a restaurant for dinner - the thought that these things are possible now fill me with dread. This past week there were multiple announcements - the lifting the of the mask mandate in Texas, Eater LA indicating that indoor dining may begin as early as next week in Los Angeles and Disneyland reopening next month. I should be happy, I should be thrilled. Those are all signs of a NORMAL life. But I'm not. I'm terrified in fact.<strong> I am nervous of re-entering society - entering a world that I may not even know what it looks like it anymore. Especially as an unvaccinated person.</strong> I look at the world so differently now. I feel distrust of others and what they do in their life. Take for example today - I went out for brunch with two friends. I usually love people watching but while sitting at the restaurant, all I could think about was my proximity with the next person and if they already had coronavirus. I hate being that person. Yet here I find myself. Perhaps I'm struggling the most with the fact that<strong> the very same politicians</strong> who blew my life up last year - the ones<strong> who told me that I shouldn't be closer than six feet, that I should wear a mask and I should not go see loved ones for the holidays are now telling me it's okay to go to a theme park or fly on an airplane or sit inside a restaurant.</strong> To be honest, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it. Why is right now different?<strong> What has fundamentally changed</strong> in the last sixty days to make this permissible? <strong> How is today, Saturday, March 6th safer than January 6th?</strong> <strong> I worry that decisions being made right now are political ones, not public health ones. And I worry that the fallout from these decisions will be horrific.</strong> That's the problem with hope - it can be so easily taken away - case in point is 2020.