Okay, so here is my pitch for you to stay home and not gather for Thanksgiving next week. You ready? Okay, good. Here we go.

My very first Covid week, I started out thinking it was gonna be a rough two week detour. I even have email from the time: “Sorry, will get back to you in three weeks, I came down with Covid” oh the innocence.

The first few days you are just nervous because you have no idea what will ultimately happen, what path of destruction this thing will take. You know you have an incessant and irritating dry cough but you have no idea how bad it can be.

Then your lungs start feeling sticky. It’s the weirdest feeling. Like every time you breath, the oxygen is escaping this sticky mound in your chest. Like you can’t possibly gulp down air enough. And your chest hurts so much.

You have this never ending fever that goes up every 3 to 5 days into the stratosphere. Then comes down and fools you into thinking you are getting better and then it goes up again. You get your hopes up and it crushes you when it comes back. It happens so many times it breaks you

But that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is how it crushes your family and friends. I’ll never be able to describe what it was like to break my mothers heart every single time my fever went back up. How many times we argued over her coming up to take care of me.

How she begged me to let her come help me. And how I knew I could possibly cause my mother’s death if I allowed her to come be with me. A thing I wanted more than anything.

How my brother would ask for a text every night before bed and every morning when I woke up because he was tracking whether or not I was alive. The sound of his exhale every time I would sleep so many hours it would make him worry.

How my heart rate would go so high, even opening the door for a grocery or food drop off from my friends, 170 beats per minute or 180 beats per minute. I would get woozy and go lay down after so I could get the energy to put it all away.

How my best friends came to my apartment every week and stood down from my balcony. And we would use our phones like a walkie talkie cause my lungs did not have the ability to project. And how I balled every single time they left.

And then I was “better” meaning my fever went away but left me w/many other problems - trying to get myself to walk down to my car would inevitably require me closing my eyes before I could drive myself to see the ocean from my car. Which I would do because morale is everything.

The day my Mama came to “get me” which involved her packing up my apartment while I laid on my couch trying to keep my heart rate down. I almost fell over various times as we tried to get me able to walk again.

You traumatize your people. And you hate it. The project of keeping you alive consumes you and them. And they can’t even be with you. Because the act of being with you could put them in the same position. It is maddening.

So that’s my pitch. Do everything you can to keep from traumatizing your people. From breaking them and yourself so continuously that it gives you PTSD to just watch an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Do everything you can to keep them from traumatizing you. Stay home. Be safe.

This is a game of Russian Roulette. You never know what is in the chamber - so don’t play. Arrange Zoom/Facetime parties. Enjoy the day with yourself or your mini-pod you quarantine with.

And like, here is the thing, my family does this big 20 to 30 person Thanksgiving every year. It is my very favorite day. We cut on each other and love on each other and eat and drink to our hearts content. It is truly heartbreaking to me to not have that this year.

And I know many of you, many more than publicly admit it, think this is overblown. That people must be exaggerating the death numbers or that no one you know has this so how can it be as widespread as they say. That a small meal with just a bit of friends and fam will be fine.

And you know what, perfectly honestly, it could be. But the Covid bullet is in the chamber. You cannot guarantee it won’t be shot with your gathering. I tested negative 5 times for this disease. Still have positive antibodies and a long health road left to travel.

I bought a walker/wheelchair so I cam start helping my body relearn how to go on longer walks next week. A walker/wheelchair y’all. I used to deadlift 220lbs and take my dog on at least a 3 mile walk a day. Now I am going to use a walker/wheelchair to relearn extended walking.

But even with all that physical consequence, none of it was worse than what I have done to my family and friends during this time. Please, please, please stay home.

Please feel free to send this to your fam, share with your people, lots of boundary setting happening this weekend. Hope this can help even one person do that with some back up.

Especially given how folks are saying things like this: https://twitter.com/karlitaliliana/status/1329996641831587840