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

Life is kind of difficult right now. My partner and I are both immunocompromised; I am on chemotherapy drugs and she has an autoimmune disease. So we have tried to avoid leaving the house as much as we can. But even when we have to go to essential places, like doctors or shopping, it is terrifying for us. We live in Oklahoma, and it seems like no one here cares to wear a mask or stay away from us. I am blind and have a guide dog, so before COVID, people used to randomly come up to pet him (which was really annoying in its own way), but at least that has stopped a bit. This pandemic has been very isolating for us. We dont have a car, which is a pretty tough way to live in Oklahoma. So I have to rely on my mother, who comes in contact with other people (usually with her mask, but I am never fully sure) to take me to get my meds or to my doctors appointments (which there is a lot of, cancer during a pandemic is not very fun). I feel like I am drowning in bad news all the time; getting on twitter is exhausting now. I feel like this country is falling apart at the seams. Every news story I see is of increasing COVID deaths, cops killing people for no reason, death, death, death. I mean, I am an Indigenous queer woman; I understand that this country was trash to begin with, I have lost family to cop violence and white violence against Native women, so I guess I am used to the death. But it feels like all of this death is building up around me, and I am scared. I am not really scared to die, but I am scared to experience the death of people I love. I have had enough of that in my life, I don't know how I would mentally handle anymore. All of my friends are long distance now. One of my best friends is literally my neighbor but I havent seen her since April; she works at the library on campus and it's not safe for me and my partner. She constantly tells me that people break the mask rule at work and that no one really understands what 6 feet apart actually means. One of my friends is in New York, which was really scary because he flew down here the week our college cancelled classes in March, when the highest COVID cases were in NY, but he had planned this trip for over 6 months and didn't live in the city, so we figured it would be okay. He said that he was the only person on the plane to Oklahoma, and there was only 2 people on the plane back to New York. The state of Oklahoma and the US government obviously dont care about use, but I do feel like my tribe is trying. They have ... my hometown, practically on lockdown: there has been a consistent mask mandate all over the city since April, and they are giving free testing to non tribe members, as well as delivering and distributing PPE all over the state. My people have my back, they even share meme like photos of our past chiefs and warriors in masks, encouraging everyone to wear them. Anyway, I am writing this the night of Trump admitting he wont peacefully transfer power over if Biden winds and the day that Breona Taylor's murderers got away with it, so I am pretty scared for the next couple of months.