This morning, I decided to make the two hour drive to Bakersfield, where they were giving shots to everyone 16+.
April 15, when all Californians are eligible, was less than a week away. I had Friday off, so I decided to go earlier. There was something poetic about trekking out to receive a vaccine that we’d all been waiting for since last March.
For the first time in over a year, I woke up very early at 6 a.m.
I got in my car and was incredibly anxious for the first hour, unused to driving long distances.
Eventually I started singing along to the tunes on my playlist, a favorite pastime from what seemed like a past life. This soon turned into an intermission-less karaoke party for nearly the whole way there and back (that’s four straight hours, to be clear).
I even started mouthing off beneath my breath to the cars that zigged and zagged between lanes.
By the time I reached my destination, some optimistic, confident part of me I’d left behind this past year had returned. And when the wonderful nurse who vaccinated me smiled and said I was good to go, it was like shedding the last layer of the past year.
An ending. And as every ending in life has taught me, a new beginning, too.
We made that drive too with both kids in the car! The strangest part was right after, when everyone sits in the room for 15 minutes around a big pillar of clocks, waiting to see if they go into anaphylactic shock before they leave