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Daily writing prompt
How have you adapted to the changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic?
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As someone with a compromised immune system, my husband and I took the threat of covid seriously from the very beginning. Unlike most of my family, I adhered to precaution and remained sheltered-in-place throughout much of the pandemic. Several of my siblings, cousins and aunts became infected with the virus. One of my sisters had it three times! Even my mother, who faithfully received her covid shots and subsequent boosters at the outset, lapsed into complacency. Residing now in an assisted-living facility, we believed it was just a matter of time before there was an outbreak there. Failing to get vaccinated last fall, despite my repeated urgings, she too ‘got covid’ in January of this year.

My husband and I steadfastly avoided large family gatherings, especially those in cold-weather months when the rates of infection increased, often dramatically. We missed graduations, weddings, funerals, family reunions. Discovering after these events that one or more individuals had been diagnosed with covid, I felt validation. Not getting sick was important to me. Not being hospitalized, was vital. Not dying, well. To us, congregating with family just wasn’t worth it.

My family relations, however, suffered due to our precautions. The dysfunction of my family, the toxicity was only amplified. While I’ll never know exactly what’s been said about me behind my back, what was said to my face, the insinuations, the accusations, the mockeries, were bad enough. So be it. I’ve moved on.

Fast forward to today, to the lives we’re living now. I have no regrets and I’m more confident about my health, more at ease. However, I still employ caution and common sense regarding where – and when – I venture out into the world. Large, open indoor spaces, especially during slow-traffic time frames, are okay. In doctor’s offices or anywhere that I have to come into close, sustained contact with others, I’ll wear a mask. There are no guarantees. I might still get covid. I understand that but I believe the prevalence of infection has substantially decreased over time. As my rheumatologist now tells me, get out there and live, Julie. And I’m doing just that. I have to be more focused and strategic about my comings and goings now but that’s okay. I can live with that.

I can live.

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Is there any lonelier feeling than when one is surrounded by family?

After decades of striving for acceptance and inclusion, it’s become crystal clear that my mother’s legacy has rendered her daughters as being incapable of demonstrating true love for one another. You know what I mean, that unconditional love one hears about, especially when talking about the supposed bonds of family. I guess that might also include myself, indoctrinated, as I am, in the pursuit of our mother’s favor to the detriment of any semblance of sisterly camaraderie, true love, genuine caring and concern for each other. I’ve never felt a fierce, nurtured compulsion among us girls to have each other’s backs. Instead, Mom has always, ever so subtly, pitted each of us against the other.

I have endeavored, my entire adult life, to present myself in such a way that my sisters, and my mother too, might finally accept, embrace and enthusiastically love and care about me, the person, their sister, her daughter.

There was the time my son lost his memory while pursuing his PhD in another state halfway across the country. He was hospitalized for almost two weeks. True, one of my sisters was there for me, helping to make arrangements for my husband and me to fly to Florida. For that I’ve always been grateful. As for the others, two of them called once or twice. The other sisters, not a word. Not a one of them sent cards or flowers.

When my husband and I got married – a second time for each of us – one sister called to inquire as to why we were getting married in his hometown, about an hour and a half away. Because I was Catholic and had no idea where my first husband was, it just seemed easier to get married in the Lutheran church where he grew up than to pursue the rigors of trying to get my first marriage annulled. When I explained this to her (and why should I even have had to?!?), she asked why we didn’t just pick a Lutheran church in our hometown. My husband’s aunts threw a very nice bridal shower for me and all of them wondered aloud why none of my five sisters were there. Well, I sure wondered too…

My passions, my achievements, my fears and concerns are met, consistently, with a ho-hum indifference. I now realize — it should have been obvious long ago — that they are never going to suddenly welcome me into the fold. Never. I can’t imagine what it might take to cause them to change. So. Change is something that I must do.

For my own sake, I must just live my own life, keeping a polite distance. I refuse to give them the satisfaction of knowing how many times their apathy and disregard has wounded me, instilling doubt after doubt after doubt. If a quote unquote ‘friend’ treated me the way my sisters have treated me throughout the years, I would not have hesitated to sever our interactions. That these women are my sisters, my own flesh and blood, has lost its power to keep me coming back again and again for more of their lack of interest in who I am as a person. It’s just too crushing and life is too short, dammit.

I’m no longer content to look on the ground for their tidbits of favor, nurturing hope that things, this time, might be different. My future, indeed, does lie beyond my own yellow brick road.