A Christmas Like No Other

When I was celebrating Christmas last year with my family and my future in-laws, I never imagined that just a few short months later, we’d be confined to our homes with a horrible virus bringing the world to its knees. As you can imagine, this is especially scary for those with autoimmune diseases. It’s especially scary for me knowing that I have an autoimmune disease as well as a partner working outside of our home on a daily basis.

This past year has been a tricky one for me. In the early stages of the quarantine in March and April, I felt sad and lonely, even though my fiancé was home every evening. I’ve always said that I’d happily work from home permanently, but when I started living it, I began to realize how isolating it can be, especially as someone who battles with depression. While we all need to do our part to stem the spread of COVID, this virus has claimed many casualties that are unrelated to testing positive.

Small businesses continue to suffer. Every time I look at my phone, I’m met with a news article written to announce the closure of yet another restaurant. Lives and livelihoods have been damaged, oftentimes irreparably. Some businesses have started to rebel against the lockdown in a last ditch, desperate attempt to save their life’s work.

Then there are those who are truly alone. Those who live at home by themselves and they have to stay there by themselves to abide by the COVID rules. There are people in hospitals and long-term care facilities who are separated from their only family and connection to the outside world.

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and we stayed home and had a small dinner together. In any other situation, we would have been at Greg’s parents’ house having a traditionally Italian turkey dinner.  Christmas is the ultimate time for family to come together and reconnect. We were hoping to do the same, but it looks like it’ll just be me, Greg and Bosco this year. We’re almost a year into the pandemic and there doesn’t appear to be any end in sight. Everybody wants this to be over, and many of us are acting like it is. But in so doing, things are only getting worse.

I miss my family, I miss commuting to work (kinda), I miss my colleagues and I miss my friends. I hope that things get back to normal soon, but this will only happen if we all work together.