Today

Was the first time since the pandemic began that I went into a store unmasked. I've been masking at work (I work in healthcare) and everywhere else inside except at home despite being vaccinated in December and January. I have underlying conditions and so does a dear friend, and we've been very careful due to variants. He still has me wipe down anything I bring home to him from the grocery, for example.

Now, at the beginning of June I did go to a family gathering at a restaurant where we didn't wear masks, but we were eating.  But yesterday we went to a friend's memorial service, and while we did bring masks, we didn't wear them. Almost no one was, actually.  About half of Kentuckians have been vaccinated, so many of those people have been (certainly the ones I was hanging around with have been).  But some weren't, of course.  But still, we have to take the plunge sometime, I guess.  So today I went to the grocery and didn't bring a mask. I felt a little naked, but closer to 'normal'. Lately, I've felt like peopel will assume I'm an anti-vaxxer because I am wearing a mask, when the guidelines have said vaccinated people can go without one.

I'll still wear one at work, of course, although there are areas of the hospital we don't have to because our vaccination rate is so high, and of course I can go without in my office.  And I wear them on the shuttle bus, as that's still a guideline due to the close quarters, especially as they've returned to full capacity.

Hopefully we won't get sick. But I have faith in the vaccines in terms of preventing us from becoming seriously sick or hospitalised, at least.

Musings

Went to the dentist yesterday for the first time since this whole thing began and while everything went really great, it was so odd to be unmasked around people that I don't see every day.  They were, of course.  But I mean, except at home, in my cubicle, and a brief period during lunchtime where my lunch bunch and I sit at different tables more than six feet apart, I'm just always masked.  I wonder when things improve and people are vaccinated, and hopefully, this will start to be a memory, how we'll feel gingerly being back to normal if that's even possible.