I’m a horrible human being.

I’ve been close to tears for the last several hours with no idea why.

I ran through all the usual suspects;
Did I eat?
Did I sleep?
Did I miss a medication?
Did I take too much medication?

I did all the fixes I could. The feeling remained. A vague sadness like a recent breakup or a friend moving away soon. Something ending.

Holy shit.

The pandemic.

I’m sad that the pandemic is ending.

I know. I deserve that.

I am not sorry that we are winning against a disease that killed hundreds of thousands of humans, shut down the world economy, and sent the world as we know it spiraling into a dark hole.

But I am sad that it’s ending.

You see, I have a secret.

The shutdown made many things easier for me.

I didn’t have social pressure to push beyond my energy level or risk losing friendships.

I didn’t have guilt that I couldn’t make social commitments.

No one had social expectations of me.

I was free of the social demands healthy people unknowingly impose on disabled people.

Even better, you were all living my life. My quiet, shut inside, have to figure out how to communicate with the outside world without actually going into it life. You were finally feeling what I felt. The isolation, the loneliness, the sense of being apart from everyone else.

Now you get to go back to normal… and I don’t.

I went into a grocery store today and most people weren’t masked, they were walking close together, fearless of getting close, en masse shopping for food. The parking lot was jammed with cars, the traffic there and home was jammed with cars. People were on the street, in the bars we drove by, gathering in large numbers again.

While I was returning home, still in my mask, to the room I spend most of my time in, once again doing the isolated thing without the mental company of the rest of world, once again the outlier.

The Pandemic is nearing its end but my disease is not. You will go back to a busy social life with gatherings and work and achievements and I will not.

For a brief period of time the pandemic gave me back a sense of belonging to the outer world, it let me feel just like everyone else.

Now that feeling is gone and I’m left feeling sad.