One thing I hear a lot is this *gestures vaguely at everything* is our “new normal,” that things like concerts and movie theaters, festivals, sporting events, free-range travel, are a thing of the past.
I refuse to believe that.
Not because I am not sure how I will survive in a world without real concerts (don’t talk to me about virtual concerts) or where I can’t go to all of the places I want to go, do all of the things I want to do.
I am not prepared for this to be anything but a glitch. I refuse to accept that this is anything but a glitch.
For several years, one of my favorite bands hosted a Christmas festival, for lack of a better term. They would play a Christmas-themed concert in their hometown of Chicago, and as the years went on, it expanded until the final year included two concerts, two tapings of a local music showcase, and after parties for the 21+ crowd. There were Q&A sessions, meet and greets, tattoo shops got in on the fun, offering special flash designs for that weekend only.
And one–unplanned–aspect of the whole thing was something that was deemed the New Heart plague.
It was the result of a couple hundred people converging on the frozen tundra from all around the world then effectively hotboxing their collective germs for three and four hours at a time before returning to the cold winter air outside. It wasn’t just one ailment, it was some mutated conglomeration of flu, cold, and whatever other weird germs people brought to the party.
We all knew it was going to happen, but we went anyway.
We mainlined Emergen-C for weeks ahead of time. We came prepared with cough drops, Pepto, Tylenol. We prepared and then it was all for naught in the end anyway.
Once in Chicago, we became the raccoons we had adopted as our mascot. Slept anywhere and whenever we could. Ate our weight in garbage. And rained general mayhem and chaos upon an unsuspecting city for a week.
I want to go back to that.
Not the festival, though that too, but the idea that living for the moment was more important than the consequences.
Please don’t assume I mean this to diminish the consequences. I am fully cognizant that people are dying. I am fully cognizant that people are suffering long term effects after their treatments are finished. I want to safely return to living for the moment with treatments and vaccines in place, but make no mistake that I want to return to that unencumbered zeal and zest.
My mental health requires it.
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D. Gabrielle Jensen 