This past week was filled with a lot of mixed feelings. Gratitude, reluctance, frustration, love…

I discovered a pattern that brings me towards men who can’t give me what I want. I realized it was coming from a part of me that didn’t feel seen when I was younger. Since that time I have perpetuated that reality by choosing men who will only go so far. Now that I’ve seen that, I decided to choose differently.

So, I told my zoomer after 10 days of silence (I held strong to my commitment not to interact until I had to) that I was not interested in being his play-thing.

He didn’t even realize that 10 days went by (what?!)…clearly he and I were not on the same page.

It was a first for me-I’ve broken up relationships of all kinds in the past but they were with anger/sadness. This one was with kindness. We had a really honest conversation and he sincerely apologized.

I felt strong because I found a part of myself that needed to be healed from my past. This brief encounter helped me do that. How can I not be grateful for that?

Gratitude seems to be the emotion that was strongest last week.

I feel so much love for my colleagues at work.

Every day we go through the heart wrenching work of seeing patients who have or are suspected of having COVID. That brings their fears, physical discomfort and questions we have limited answers to.

It’s not easy.

It’s never been easy to be a doctor, but it wasn’t something that I really paid attention to before. Probably because it was balanced out by a variety of needs from my patients. But in a pandemic, the majority of our interactions with patients are from what is causing it. And right now, it’s COVID.

Having others who are in the same boat, feeling like we are floating through mud brings a unity that I am grateful for. We are learning from and teaching other, constantly.

I am having a personal struggle as a professional in the field of medicine with the lack of understanding about how the SARS Cov-2 virus is behaving.

Doctors are used to having and finding answers to questions about what we can do for our patients.

All of us are using our knowledge of microbiology, pathology and immunology to explain what may be happening with COVID-19 but its in a void. What we would expect to happen isn’t happening. We are seeing things we don’t fully understand. Guidelines from authorities are confusing and inconsistent.

Well, we at least know wearing a face mask, washing hands and maintaining social distancing will prevent this virus from spreading.

That would be easy to follow, you’d think. All my patients seem to understand it and follow the instructions. They realize it’s to prevent others from getting sick.

But then I look outside my window and see throes of people walking around without masks. The sun shines and everyone thinks they are suddenly immune.

I get it’s hard to be cooped up for a couple of months, but it’s only a couple of months to avoid several more months of needing to do this.

The evidence does show that staying at home reduces the viruses ability to infect since hosts are not available.

WHY is that so hard for people to understand? I am really struggling with that.

Wearing a mask is the single most kindest act you can do for our human race right now. It’s not about protecting yourself as much as the other. So, is that the basic issue? That people are too self absorbed? The sacrifice of some chin acne and ear pain isn’t worth protecting others?

Eight weeks ago, I started this COVID contemplation with positivity about human kind and hope that we would learn lessons to improve our state on this planet. But I am starting to see only the ones who want to learn are going to receive that wisdom. Words my mother shared with me today.

The rest of us are left at their mercy.

How many more people need to die in vain for people to stop protesting and stay home?

My gratitude stems to all of those who are wearing masks, staying home, educating their young ones about the benefits to others by staying home and getting creative about ways to entertain themselves. I want to extend that gratitude to those who have an open mind to take this challenge on-to spread the love and increase the kindness in our world-by a shitload-by staying home, wearing a mask and washing your hands.