So, I got the shot. Well, shots, plural – I got the Pfizer two-shot wonder, the requisite number of weeks apart. I’ve been watching a steady stream of people I know posting  gleeful “I GOT SHOT!” images on social media, showing off bandaids or stickers or someone poking a needle into their arms while they turn their masked faces to the camera and do their best to show that they are smiling. and then there’s the “oh the things we’ll do (again)” posts that follow. From people who can’t wait to go back into the world. From people who are wary of going back into the world. From people who are frankly scared of going back into the world. A world that has changed.

I’m looking at cons. Not that I used to go to a huge number of them – but things like Orycon, in Portland in the fall, have been something of a mainstay and this year they seem to be on track to have an in-person convention again. And I am looking at it with honest yearning, and it would probably be a magic wand of sorts, assuming enough people are brave enough to go there this year, that enough people I know and MISS, dammit, might be there for me to talk to in person again one day some day soon when the plague ends.

But is it safe? will it be safe? How do we learn to trust the world again?

We can make plans, and they can come to pass, and have consequences we may not have anticipated -are we prepared for that? Or are we prepared for the “best laid plans” scenario where we might MAKE those plans and have every intention of putting them into action and then something can happen at the last minute and it all falls through and we’re going to be even more bereft and despondent than if we had never made the plans at all?

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