I was scrolling through Instagram, and I saw a post that caught my attention. It said something to the effect of ‘February is now the only month that hasn’t been affected by COVID.’ And that…I didn’t really know how to feel about that.

I have not seen my friends – unmasked – since March. I communicate exclusively through text, and occasional FaceTimes (although those are few and far between). My family and I stay at home. We don’t go out to eat, we don’t go to parties, and when we need something from the grocery store we make an online pickup order so we don’t have to actually enter the store. 

Some might say this is a bit extreme, but I would argue that this is exactly what we’re supposed to be doing. 

And here’s the thing. Here is what makes me mad, what infuriates me beyond belief. We have been doing everything correctly, my family and I. We have been making the right decisions and staying safe for 10 months now. I’ve sacrificed time with friends, a ‘normal’ senior year, and countless other things. All because I’m trying to do my best to keep other people safe.

I feel like that’s what it comes down to, at the end of the day. My family understands that going out (especially unmasked) helps spread the virus. So we stay at home. I know that everyone else understands this fact as well, yet they simply do not care. That’s the only reason I can come up with as to why people keep gathering unsafely. I cannot think of another reason that people would continuously meet up and blatantly disregard the health and safety of others. 

I honestly don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say, what arguments to make. I don’t know how to force people to care about someone other than themselves.

I can only hope that eventually, one day, people will look around and realize that their actions affect other people. That they will exit the bubble they have cocooned themselves into, remove the blinders that have blocked out other people’s pain, and finally begin to do what’s right.

I can’t physically make a person care about other people.

But I can try my best to help them get there.