August
According to the Region of Waterloo vaccine plan, ordinary citizens will qualify for vaccine shots in Phase 3 of the rollout. That is not scheduled to start until August (and depending on vaccine supplies, may well be longer).
This feels like not one but two punches in the gut. First it means that we going to remain stuck at home throughout the summer. The timing is particularly bad because it throws the "will university classes be in person?" question wide open. I do not want to teach sessionals any more, but I want the option of doing so in case everything else falls through. The uncertainty in the vaccination scheduling throws teaching into question.
Secondly, it is a concrete sign that the lockdown is coming to an end. As I have written earlier, lockdown has not been terrible for me, and I earned more money in 2020 than any other year. I do not like working from home and I do not do it well, but it means that I do not have to dress up, being on time for meetings is much easier, and nobody cares whether I work from 9am-5pm or 9pm-5am. Given my lack of temporal discipline it seems that the lockdown life is better for me than real life.
I acknowledge that the pandemic has been really difficult for lots of people, and once I contract COVID because I went to the junk food store then it will probably be very difficult for me as well. But it has not been bad yet.
On the one hand, it seems that I am unhappy because the lockdown will drag out until August or later. On the other, it seems I am unhappy because we can see the end of the tunnel. These gut punches are completely contradictory, and I do not know what to do about that.
My COVID anxiety has been bad lately (yesterday I convinced myself that I was running a fever), so getting over that would be a good thing. It would also be nice to have more legitimate excuses to get exercise. But other than Recycle Cycles, my life has not been all that disrupted by the lockdowns. I have still been going on bike rides. I am even able to buy junk food from the junk food stores, which is idiotic of me but still allowed by the legislation. I have missed human interaction a little, but given that I have housemates I have not missed it that much. After being incredibly afraid of lockdown life I am now used to it and afraid of going back to regular life. There is no pleasing me, I guess.