Hi there, Reader,

I was interviewed about a month ago by the hosts of one of my favorite podcasts, Pantsuit Politics, about my experience with long Covid and how it has affected my friendships.

At least that's what I remembered being asked about. The episode just came out last week and as I was listening, I realized that the initial question was actually "how has POLITICS affected your friendship".

There were three other women that were selected to be part of the interview and while, essentially, the conversation was about the political climate, it ALL came down to the pandemic.

How they watched friends start to become more overtly political with the 2016 election, but then DAMN WHEN THE PANDEMIC HIT.

How they lost friends entirely to the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories around Covid.

--> It was a hoax.

--> It's just like the flu.

--> Just take more vitamin C.

--> The doctors are falsifying death certificates.

I've shared a lot about my physical experience after getting sick, and about my recurring symptoms. I've talked a bit about how it's affected my friendships. But listening back to how I told my story to these women, made me realize I've never really shared much about how it took what I thought were my beliefs and threw them into a high-speed blender.

Picture it. December of 2020.

Businesses were still shut down. Our kids were home, learning fractions on Zoom. We wore homemade masks to the grocery store and wiped down just about everything we touched. Plexiglass was everywhere. The streets still felt a bit like a ghost town.

Melody got sick.

I only set the stage so you can better understand how long I've been watching our country react to Covid, and the pandemic in general.

It changed the way I understood people. It changed the way I really heard the things that people said.

I used to say that I just didn't understand politics and they didn't really affect me anyway, so who cares even. Who has time?

If you've known me for awhile, you know that things are almost exactly opposite now. Why?

BECAUSE POLITICS FOUND THEIR WAY INTO MY BLOODSTREAM THROUGH A DAMN VIRUS.

I sure wish it could have happened another way, but often the lessons we learn come in the crappiest damn packages.

I mean, maybe this is just what going through a global pandemic is like? I don't have a lot of historical reference here.

I think most of us either fundamentally changed something in our lives - our behavior, our beliefs, our career, our lifestyle.

I've heard it over and over and over again.

For me, the physicality of my experience changed everything - my mental health, my understanding of the world, my level of empathy.

But because my experience mirrored what was going on across the country, it felt like the way people reacted to Covid was direct commentary on how they felt about me.

Not entirely fair or rational, I know.

But when is our trauma ever rational?

Along with trying to manage my physical symptoms through one million doctor's visits, one million supplements, anxiety meds and anti-depressants, I've spent what feels like thousands of hours trying to work through my tsunami of feelings.

Rage, anger, grief, disappointment, disbelief, guilt.

I've lost a lot of friendships in the process. Not in a dramatic, cut each other off, kind of way. But in a sad, slowly eroding kind of way. In a way that feels so extraordinarily vulnerable and like an indictment of me. Maybe they feel that way on their side too?

My takeaway from the interview I was part of and listening to the other interviews they did around immediate family and partners, is that the last several years have taken an immense toll on us. All of us.

Our well-being, our mental health, our relationships, our physical health.

One of the things I said in the interview that still rings entirely true for me:

If we can't acknowledge grief and pain and suffering and discomfort, then what are we even doing here?

No joyful or glorious takeaways here, just some things I've been thinking about.

My instinct is always to end something a little depressing with a big old LOL to show that I'm still easy breezy.

Not going to do that today.

LOL

P.S. If you want to listen to the podcast episode, you can find it where ever you listen to podcasts or by clicking here. It's not the full interview, just snippets from each of us that were interviewed. It's a pretty extraordinary listen.