Ana Mardoll (@AnaMardoll): Hon, I say this with all love and no judgment: you don't need the government to "open" things. You need a therapist to explain that the past you long to return to isn't coming back.
A lot of us need that, really. https://twitter.com/davidmfaris/status/1491583615796396035
1 million people are dead. God knows how many more have been permanently disabled. Thousands of businesses have closed. None of that is going to be undone. I wish we could.
The subway isn't as busy as you remember because some people are working from home, some people quit their jobs to homeschool their kids, some people are sick, and some people are dead. A proclamation from the mayor isn't going to fill their empty seats for you.
The restaurants and bars aren't as full as you remember because some people are staying home for their own safety, some people are staying home for their children's safety, some people can't afford to eat out now, and...some people are dead.
Like, god, the restaurant situation alone stuns me. Do you understand how MANY of the Before Times restaurant clientele was families with children under the age of 5? Do you expect them to eat out when their kids can't be vaccinated? Really, sweetie??? Really?
Increasingly it is clear that the "open everything" crowd aren't wise policy makers. They're just as traumatized as the rest of us and scrambling to try to regain the lost past. They need therapy, not a newspaper column.
My own strategy for coping is to try to imagine how we can make a BETTER world. Like, what if we tore down those useless empty business offices and put in trees and parks and vegetable gardens.
What if we turned the empty offices into insulated homes for homeless people? With ground floor cafes where food is plentiful and free?
What if we found new ways for people to get out and socialize safely without having to be indoors during an airborne plague?
Because, yeah, otherwise depression over what we've lost will consume me too. I'm not special or immune from depression. What we've lost is enormous, and the powers that govern us keep pretending it'll come back any day now. 😞
We need a national mourning commemorating and acknowledging what we've lost.
Fascists will weaponize what has been lost and blame marginalized people for the loss. That's how fascism works.
My thread is about how even if those restrictions all end tomorrow, the past isn't coming back: the dead can't be resurrected, the bankrupted businesses won't reopen, and bars won't suddenly fill. https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status/1492348533466406917?t=3fuq3OOJpRtQCM7sB3Lfjg&s=19
David is mourning the fact that people haven't voluntarily returned to their pre-pandemic lives. He, and others, need to understand that is not going to happen. The post-pandemic world is going to be different for us, because that's how trauma and global events work.
The dead aren't going to resurrect. The disabled aren't going to flood back into the bars. Parents who quit their jobs to homeschool aren't going to file back into the workplace. Work-from-homers aren't going to give up their freedom.
These have nothing to do with restrictions.
David asks, can this be fixed by the governor telling everyone to return to normal? No, it can't. The pandemic has shattered things we took for granted about life, about our government, about our neighbors. That can't be fixed with a simple proclamation.
https://twitter.com/davidmfaris/status/1491583615796396035?t=3fuq3OOJpRtQCM7sB3Lfjg&s=19
The governor saying "Everything is open! Go out and be normal!" isn't going to change the fact that I now know with certainty that 50% of my neighbors are willing to kill me with a deadly disease, or bankrupt me with a costly hospital stay, rather than wear a mask.
Nor is such a proclamation going to make me want to go out and celebrate when I'm still deeply in mourning for the friends I've lost to this disease. It's no surprise that many folks don't feel like a night out when we just buried a loved one.
If we could somehow eradicate covid tomorrow, I would be overjoyed.
I still would not have the heart to fill the bars and restaurants, because I am in grief for all we have lost. Lots of people are, and that's why the bars aren't full no matter how many columnists demand it.
I should probably link this thread with this other thread. https://twitter.com/AnaMardoll/status/1492402847027191808?t=Zlh9XByOal1ovbw4P7Y2oA&s=19