It’s been 15 days since I cleared my throat only to find nothing to clear. Just a dry, unproductive cough. Thats when I knew it had finally happened. Almost four years. I so fucking ashamed of myself.

Just let me vent. I’m just going to write this all out and hit post without reading it over. Sorry for typos and nonsequiturs. Aside from my partner, y’all are some of the only people who would understand.

How I got it isn’t a mystery to me. I’m a teacher. The viral load in my classroom is somewhere between an Italian hospital in March 2020 and a Stuckey’s restaurant in rural Kansas any time of the year. I’ve been trying not to blame myself, but I know I slipped up in my masking / handwashing / prevention protocols somewhere.

I don’t have an air filtration system available. When my students leave for another class I open the exterior windows and door to try to draft the air in my room. Ten minutes later I’ll go into the attached storage room to eat my lunch since I can’t leave the building to eat in my car. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s what I have. 14-18 days ago I must have forgotten to open the windows. Maybe I didn’t wait longer enough before taking off my mask. If I’m being charitable to myself, the viral load in my room was probably just too much. Hell, it might not have even mattered that I had an n95 on because half of my 25 students were hacking their lungs all day.

I went back to school this Monday. My students were so confused. It’s diffficult fielding their questions when all the answers are just me explaining that COVID is not normal and there is still a pandemic.

“How could you have gotten it if you wear a mask all the time?”

“Why are you wearing a mask if you have it now?”

“Why is it taking so long for you to get better?”

Each one of my students, their parents, their family members has had COVID multiple times. They’re elementary students. They literally cannot remember a world without this pandemic. It’s a common part of life that everyone tells them if fine and normal. Everyday I act as a reminder to them that something is not right. One my students got mad yesterday that I’m still wearing a mask now. I had to send them out to the counselor. They came back some minutes later and said, “I’m sorry. I know it’s because it’s hard for you to move on.”

Of course the hardest part is not seeing my kids or my partner since well before the thanksgiving holiday. I’ve been living in our basement, relegated to an old couch on a 10x10 square of carpet. It’s undoubtedly been harder on my partner, having to shoulder the burden of being a single parent when we’re so used to working as a team. I just want to go upstairs. The footsteps make me lonely. I tested again tonight. The line is so faint now. Maybe tomorrow it will be negative, and I can see my family with a mask until I test negative in another 48 hours. But time has crawled these two weeks. Even slower than the past four years.

I have a lot of feelings that I don’t know how to put into words. Shame and anger. Depression. Hopelessness. Rage. While I still had a fever my brother texted me. He asked, since I’ve gotten COVID now, if my kids can start hanging out with his kids. I told him, “No.” and left it at that. We haven’t talked since. We won’t be coming to Christmas again this year.

I want to go back to March 2020.