I got my first dose yesterday of the Moderna COVID vaccine. I wanted the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, because I was nervous about getting vaccinated at all, but the first place to offer me a spot in line offered me the two-dose Moderna vaccine, and I accepted. I considered not getting vaccinated at all. We are a year or more into the pandemic and I have either successfully avoided it while going to work in person, going to the courthouse, going to the post office, going to the grocery store, dining out, getting takeout, and seeing people – or I’ve had COVID and never known it. While doing all of the things I mentioned, I’ve also stayed home more, worn masks, washed my hands (even enjoyed a nice salt scrub something-or-other at a bathroom in Florida), and made more of an effort to keep a safe distance from folks in public. But I am not the person who has done all of the right things for the last year. I am just a person.

I have no strong opinion on the vaccine(s). I watched as my social media feeds became more about who was getting the vaccine than who had gotten COVID, and that seemed like a positive trend. At the time I got my first shot yesterday, 4 people in my office of 8 people had been vaccinated at least with their first dose (I make 5). What that said to me is, “I don’t need to get a vaccine. Everyone around me will soon have gotten it. Vaccinated people = safe people.” That isn’t the attitude I have about any of the other vaccines in my record, but this is a new virus and we’re still figuring it out, including whether vaccinated people spread COVID (which seems absurd to me, because I thought the whole point of a vaccine was to prevent the vaccinated from getting the virus, but I ain’t a doctor or a scientist). But people who have gotten the vaccine and not died or had bad reactions to it (which I think is damn near everyone) are very positive about the vaccine, and at least one person in my office who received it has asked me several times when I’m getting my shot. She actually connected me with the pharmacy that got me an appointment. Given my personal experience with either avoiding COVID or being asymptomatic, I didn’t feel a strong urge to get vaccinated. I am not high risk by way of comorbidities except that I’m a bit fatter than I’d like to be. I’m only in my 40s. I’d rather everyone else who wants it and needs it more than me get it first. I have at least one friend itching to get it who can’t because her job hasn’t been deemed essential, and mine is just close enough to the court system to qualify. I think she’ll get her chance soon, because it seems like the phases are opening up rapidly.

I also wasn’t anxious to get the vaccine because I was anxious about getting the vaccine. It’s new. It’s unknown. A small number of people have died from it (I found one article from January that said 55 people in the US had died from COVID vaccines and then another article in March saying one more, plus I heard of a girl recently, so, let’s say 57 and understand that this number is going to be a bit off because VAERS is too complicated for me to search), but it’s scary to voluntarily inject something into my body that could kill me to prevent catching the virus that so far hasn’t killed me or even made me sick. (In case you’re wondering, I know COVID is a bigger problem than just how it affects me. I wrote about that some time ago: Please hug me – Christy Said It.Com.)

But I fully supported every friend and family member who got vaccinated. I was genuinely happy and hopeful for them. I expected nothing bad to happen to them (and nothing has). I had to carry that positivity through for myself. Also, I participated in a drug trial for a migraine medicine that I think I now use. It’s great! And after several years, it finally led to a generic that costs me hundreds of dollars less for a mere 8 pills. I’ve been a guinea pig before. This is how we learn – but yes, it’s risky, and it’s uncertain. Everyone who has lived this pandemic is participating in scientific trials one way or another. Herd immunity, vaccines, COVID survival immunity, death, mental trauma, on and on the list goes.

I write this blog because this pandemic has revealed such varying responses amongst all of us who are experiencing it. A mask is either a life-saver or a political tool. If you don’t wear it, you must care for no one. It couldn’t be that you are medically excused or have been vaccinated. (And for what it’s worth, although I think my vaccine should = setting my masks on fire and hugging strangers, the scientists haven’t caught up to me yet, and I guess I’ll hold onto them just like I keep wearing high heels and uncomfortable underwear – which is a different blog for a different time.)

A vaccine can’t just be hope and scientific exploration as we try to end a pandemic I think it’s safe to say nobody wants (but some will disagree with me even on that) – I have had conversations with people who explained the evilest of intentions for the vaccine while not pausing to consider that I had loved ones who had received it. I got my shot, in part, to put an end to that nonsense – not that it will. I have encountered a sad lot of conspiracy theories recently and my only conclusion is that reality is too much for some folks to accept.

I’ll be in touch again after dose #2 – unless, of course, I die. But, should that happen, my Will is done and I will have contributed to science one way or another. Some days, death would be better than reading COVID memes and other posts about who’s smarter than whom in a pandemic where even the people with science and medical degrees are still figuring it out. (In other words: we’re all still figuring it out. When you think you’re the smartest person in the room . . . keep thinking.)