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The Bittersweet Feeling of Getting Vaccinated
Have we become more connected or more polarized?
Last weekend, I received the first dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine. Though I would have eventually got the vaccine, I hadn’t been in any rush. But I sought out the vaccine sooner based on the urging of my boyfriend, who had already been vaccinated. I likely would have waited for my next doctor’s appointment.
As I drove to the convention center to get my vaccine early on a Saturday morning, I started to feel a sense of relief. “Maybe this really will be over soon,” I thought to myself. But I felt something else too that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was something like regret or foreboding but not that strong. Uncertainty, maybe? Were we ready for the pandemic to be over? Did we learn the lessons we needed to learn? I wasn’t so sure.
I pulled into the Prudential parking garage in Boston at 8 a.m. Cars were piling in with people on the same mission. We gathered together (adhering to social distancing guidelines, of course) to wait for elevators and make our way through the long corridors of the mall. Occasionally, I would make eye contact with another human. It was like we were on a pilgrimage. Although I couldn’t see or share a smile beneath our masks, I like to assume one was there. There was a knowing look, maybe even a…
