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

I was extremely depressed and overwhelmed this week. Whatever patience, understanding, and generosity people had for the circumstances of the pandemic seems to have completely evaporated, even though we're still months out from going back to "normal." I guess it's not unlike grieving a lost loved one, and the hardest time is after people are no longer being gentle with you, but you're not actually over the loss yet. That happens a lot with trauma. And I'm embarrassed and ashamed that the pandemic hasn't hit me as hard as it's hit other people, but I'm really not over how upended my daily life has been for the past year. But everyone around me seems to be back to normal productivity. So what's wrong with me? I hate feeling "weak," that I'm not even close to the level of "okay" that everyone around me seems to be. I do Irish step dancing as a hobby, and even though it's just a hobby, I miss it terribly. I have not been in a studio in nearly a year. Over the summer I did a few outdoor classes, but other than that, it's just been Zoom classes in my tiny living room all year long. Our instructor is having classes in the studio within the legal restrictions, but it seems like a colossally stupid risk to take. Almost everyone involved in the studio, instructor included, are the type of conservatives that believe QAnon conspiracy theories, think COVID is overblown, and vaccines are dangerous. I know they judge me for being a weak, cowardly sheep for refusing to go back to the studio. I went to one outdoor performance in September after assurance that it was safe, but it wasn't. The venue was way over legal capacity for our state at that time, no one wore masks, and many of the parents openly ridiculed people who were. I don't know why I don't just quit. Before COVID, I simply made my disagreement on politics respectfully known and I loved Irish dance enough to put up with it. I never imagined that those political differences would actually pose a genuine physical safety risk. I really shouldn't be giving a penny to a dance school that's been so reckless with the health and safety of dancers. But Irish dance means a lot to me, and I think it's hard for me to come to terms with the fact that it's time to part with this studio. The fact that I haven't quit on principle is what truly makes me weak and cowardly, not the fact that I refuse to go to the studio. Underlying all of that is processing that it will be the *second* St. Patrick's Day with no live performances, no dancing with other people, no singing with other people, no drinking with other people. St. Patrick's Day 2019 I taught some of the younger dancers the claps that go along with Whiskey in the Jar as we watched a band play before we went on. I always make soda bread for my friends. I always do two batches, one regular batch, and one batch with an extra egg in the recipe and raisins replaced with chocolate chips. Nobody taught me that, it was just a random thing I started doing in college and it sort of just stuck. Last year, everything was too swift and novel to really processes the loss. This year, it's almost worse, knowing for a fact that it's just not going to happen.