I’ve been struggling since my return to work in 2021 with having to guess at and take precautions against everyone else’s dropping of precautions around Covid.

It is making me consider a forced retirement.

Yes. You read that right. You might not be able get bodywork from me any longer.

Maybe that would be a relief to you. Maybe having to wear a mask in my office has been a drain on your energy. Maybe being reminded of the virus’s existence every time you get bodywork from me hasn’t been comfortable for you. Maybe your perception of the pandemic is that it’s over. Maybe you’ve had Covid a couple of times and personally consider it a mild disease. Maybe you’ve gone to other massage offices and nobody’s been masked and that environment has felt great to you.

Respectfully, I understand why you might think and feel these things, but I disagree with all of them.

Protecting one another and thinking about one another are what a cogent and thoughtful society does. We are not that by any stretch of our imagination. It may have been an illusion of the privileged to begin with, and now that we are in year five of a global pandemic, the nitrile gloves are off.

I disagree with the idea that the pandemic is over. It is not. I disagree with the idea that the virus is mild. It is not. Even seasonal diseases are actually… seasonal. Covid is not. I can quote facts and statistics and studies and email or text you articles about all of this until I’m blue the face, but most people don’t want to read or listen. Most people are over it, have not processed one iota of their trauma from the last five years, and just want to move on.

I understand. I’m tired as hell, too.

However, Covid continues to do both outright and unseen damage to millions of bodies, and is doing so at this very moment, maybe even in your own organs or brain. I may be in a group of one in this lack of delusion about the continuing risks of the pandemic. Yet, it is my job to keep my own boundaries strict even when the people around me relax theirs. It’s Ethics 101.

Because of everyone else’s relaxed boundaries, though, my boundary may have to become so rigid that I discontinue working with people one-on-one.

I feel horrible when I consider this idea, because I expected to do bodywork well into my 80s. I still believe that my work is valuable in its own small way, and I don’t know who I am if I don’t have my work. But I wouldn’t know who I was if I was dead, either.

I can’t make you all take precautions or PCR tests or even tell the actual truth when you come in to get bodywork. Thus, I may not be able to afford the risk levels that you all bring to me.

Yep. It’s you, not me. There. I said it.

I don’t have the resources saved up to retire, of course. I am also too young to retire, but I’m weighing this idea against the very real risks of long Covid ending up forcing me to retire or a Covid infection killing me outright. I don’t feel that I have to disclose my risk factors to you for you to even care, but trust that they’re there. 

I can take all the precautions in the world, but if other people around me aren’t taking any, my own risk increases exponentially. When my risk increases, the risk of everyone around me also increases, but nobody seems to care about that anymore.

Most people stopped caring about each other and what we were doing in relation to protecting ourselves from Covid in 2021 or thereabouts when the popular policy of “let it rip and save the economy” became what we were doing.

Most people were so excited to get back to vacationing, and spending money, and not wearing masks, and going to concerts, and taking all of these chances by being in groups and community that everyone purposefully and almost overnight stopped thinking about the actual risks that are still very prevalent.

Everyone stuck their heads in the sand. If they didn’t think about Covid, it didn’t exist. If they didn’t talk about Covid, it didn’t exist. If they stopped wearing a mask, they would magically be protected from it because they weren’t thinking about it.

It is mass delusion. We are still in a mass disabling event.

The dead can’t speak up. The people and children suffering from long Covid also don’t have the resources or energy to speak up most of the time. We have pushed them all aside, marginalized them, called them crazy, and accused them of conspiracy theories or it “being all in their heads” and worse. We don’t talk or think about or mourn (especially not collectively!) the millions of people who are sick or dead. It’s too depressing. It’s not fun! Covid isn’t fun, so we don’t want to believe in it any longer.

I follow a couple of writers who stay on top of the pandemic and are still very concerned for our society and humanity as a whole.

I am, too.

This is not what I had on my bingo card for humanity, the possible decimation of humanity, or the end of my career.

What can *you* do now that you know I am thinking about forced retirement? Is there anything you can do to save my practice and still get bodywork from me?

Maybe.

First off: think. Think about what you’re doing in the days prior to your session, while I’m still offering sessions.

Consider the risk factors of possibly carrying and spreading this disease asymptomatically (a non-zero risk). Think about how much you appreciate getting your massage, and whether or not you wish to be honest about your own behaviors around Covid and the very real risks you bring into my office.

Take a little bit of time to educate yourself on proper mitigation, most importantly, wearing good masks and filtering the air. I know it’s big and scary, but eat this elephant one bite at a time. Do your best. I’ve got resources for you if you reach out. 

I really did not want to get to the point of having to admonish the people I care for and about for being selfish and inconsiderate in their personal lives.

Yet, here we are.

Please realize that it’s never too late to restart your basic Covid precautions. It’s never too late to think about your own risk factors, the people whom you may be endangering, and what risks you may be taking on personally from encountering this virus.

Trust me when I say that getting the virus repeatedly is not a good thing.

Know that the vaccinations do not prevent infection or transmission. They failed in this modest task that was their charge. They may help reduce severity of symptoms, reduce overall long Covid risk, and reduce hospitalization and risk of death, however. So overall, they are not a bad thing! Yet the idea that we who can take vaccinations should do so partially to protect other people who cannot take them fell by the wayside a long time ago.

Know that your body doesn’t create more or better immunity the more often you’re sick.

Think of your car’s suspension in relation to a terrible, rutted, potholed road. The more often you drive on that road, especially with abandon, the more chance you have of something going horrifically wrong with your car. It is not a perfect analogy, because you are not a machine, but your car doesn’t get better from being driven harder. Your body doesn’t either.

This thing mutates too rapidly and your body becomes depleted too intensely by each and every infection it gets. I won’t go into other documented effects of multiple infections; just know they exist, and that they can be horrific.

Also know that caffeine isn’t going to fix your new brain fog. It’s Covid.

Realize that you had a direct hand in how the world is today, and that means that you have a direct hand in how the world can be tomorrow.

Are we going to step up and actively care about ourselves and other people around us? Or are we just so focused on either basic survival or hyper-consumption and FOMO that we don’t feel we can spend $20 on a box of good masks and wear them everywhere — and properly?

Are we so worried about what other people in society will think about us that we won’t properly mask in public? Do we really think that mask bans are going to “solve” this problem — like not thinking or talking about Covid “solved” the pandemic?

Masks work well at mitigating airborne disease. I’ve been saying since mid-2020 that Covid is airborne and we should not share air.

I haven’t changed my mind. What changed yours?

It’s up to you. I’m going to consider the forced retirement idea for a couple of weeks, take some time to go check in on an elderly family member, and then I’ll let you know what I’ve decided.

I guess I’ll also be looking for a different job to help keep the lights on. 

For the time being I’m closing my practice to new clients and I am going to have difficult, come-to-Jesus conversations with my most egregious offenders. I may even have to fire some clients outright.

It won’t be pretty, but I’ll be doing it because I care about you, your health, my health, and the health of all the people around us.

It’s my job and my ethical duty to protect all of us to the best of my ability as long as I continue to practice my profession. But it’s clear to me that even my high levels of layered precautions aren’t going to cut it long-term.

I refuse to go the other way and pretend that Covid is over. The only logical option is to stop taking the risks, which may include stopping working in my profession. I will be lost without it, but I would rather be lost than severely sick — or dead.