I am sick of pandemic porn so I have just shut off the radio, and it is going to stay shut off until...until...until the next time I turn it on.I generally do not read news online, since the internet is just crawling with fake news and all things Gwyneth Paltrow, and I really couldn't be bothered, Gentle Reader. It isn't that I don't care. Of course I care, but now even our most trusted news sources are beginning o sound alarmist with the old retrospectascope, which is fancy schmancy for twenty-twenty hindsight.
We're all gonna DIE!!!!!!!! Well, of course we are. It's written in the contract. No one gets out of this life alive. Are we all going to die from coronavirus? Hell now. Are two percent or less of those who get infected going to die from it. Yeah, probably. And some will be so sick as to require intensive hospital care and there is legitimate worry out there that not a lot of our health care systems will cope well under the strain. And as for our economy, well, we can say bye-bye to that little capitalist fairy tail, and likely for a long time to come.
Why am I not worried about any of this? Why am I not afraid of the virus, of getting sick, of dying? Why do I go through the day smiling and quietly enjoying seeing people on the sidewalks and the streets (while walking two or three metres around them,natch, or holding my breath till we're at least six feet apart, that is)? Do I not care? Of course I care. Here I am surrounded by an entire generation of soft and spoiled and spoiled rich kids that have never been tested. I don't mean never been tested for the virus, but they have never really been tested by life. They have had it too good.
Does this make me different from them? Yes. I am a trauma survivor. I do not, or no longer have PTSD, and possibly never really had it, since that is such a difficult diagnosis to make. But when you really have a look at my CV, and then take a look at me now, and really see how well I am doing for all the nasty and scary shit that I have survived, perhaps that might give some of you a clue as to why I am walking, sometimes dancing, through this pandemic somewhat dry-eyed.
Having survived a childhood full of all levels of abuse, and lots of schoolyard bullying and social shunning, having experienced first hand the sometimes violent persecution by ignorant fools who dislike Christians, back when I was a teenage Jesus freak; having got through coming out as a gay youth while still not coming to terms with my asexuality, since I had allowed the boy I was in love with to pressure me and emotionally blackmail me into putting out for him; having had to endure the violent persecution and social shunning against queer people that was still so typical during the seventies and eighties; having survived the AIDS pandemic of the eighties and nineties, which had a one hundred per cent mortality rate, while giving pastoral and palliative care to gay men and drug users who were perishing outside of the sanction of society; having survived the rejection and shunning of all of my surviving family; having myself survived chronic poverty from low wage employment, followed by a stint of homelessness, then three and a half years subsisting on welfare....
Well, Gentle Reader, you get the picture, I'm sure. I have already been through it all, and it rather delights my hard, cold and cruel little heart that finally the rest of you are now getting a taste of what I and others have been having to live with all our lives, that now you too are finally having your taste of the absolute ruthless uncertainty of life. I wish I had more sympathy for the rest of you, but really, I do not. I do want to get through this with you, and I have made up my mind to do this with kindness and care and respect, because, yes, we are all in this together. Rather a pity that none of you were ever around for me to whisper the same comforting words into my ears when I was going through my time of suffering, but I can forgive that, I suppose.
In the meantime, as part of becoming a better person, I have opted to forgive all of you for the crap I have endured from the likes of you when I was poor, at risk of illness, homeless, despised and rejected and marginalized, and sometimes not even sure where I would be sleeping that night or where my next meal was coming from. I know how scary that is. I have survived, and my butt is a lot harder than it used to be. And instead of getting all frightened and miserable about things we cannot control and outcomes we cannot predict, I have opted instead to go on reaching out to others in tenderness, love and care. And I am still going to smile and keep smiling, because my heart is dancing with joy for the sheer gratitude I have to God for seeing me through and for all his many gifts and blessings. And we're going to get through this. Every last one of us. Even if I come across as a callous and scolding hardass, it is really because I do love every last one of you. Hold on Keep holding on!
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