Whatever you think about vaccines, or the algorithm against which they are being dished out – this to me, today, means HOPE.
Not for me as a newly inoculated individual, happy and grateful as I am to have this card in my grasp, particularly as someone who is deemed at increased risk. But for humanity. This, to me, is permission for us to indulge in future nostalgia, where we dance and hug and laugh without a deadly veil looming chokingly over our every move.
It’s the possibility of livelihoods not being ruined by circumstances no one could have foreseen. Of people being able to leave their homes without a heavy cloak of anxiety joining them in their quest for a pint of milk. Of a step towards fulfilling our innate need for experience and connection. The best days we didn’t plan. Saying “Who wants a brew?” in the office at just the right level to catch the ears of just the right amount of people. Stepping onto airport tarmac and being hit with the heady air of a new country. Brief, passing interludes with strangers at bus stops. Being part of a heaving, soggy yet sunburnt crowd singing its favourite song at the top of its combined lungs.
Everything about my experience of being vaccinated today was full of so much warmth – despite the incredible efficiency, the clinical setting and the all too familiar smell of sanitisation that’s cracked our spirits as much as our skin. Maybe it was the spring air but I skipped out with a feeling I couldn’t immediately place; one that I now recognise as something like happenstance. I was greeted by at least six volunteers at various stages, and having a fleeting conversation with these bright strangers filled my heart in a way I didn’t even realise was lacking. The nurse who administered my jab mentioned that her son also lives with type 1 diabetes and I sat there 30 seconds longer, holding the cotton wool to my arm like the seal of a kiss as we chatted about how he’s doing and how she’s doing as a parent grappling with a chronic illness from afar.
Thanks medicine, thanks science, thanks logistics teams, thanks volunteers and thanks always NHS. Thanks for giving me hope. Thanks also for my sticker. Nice touch.
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