It’s the first time I’ve been out and about in an exercising way in a while. I’ve just been doing walks around the house. I’d do about a mile inside the house, maybe a little dumbbell action. Not the best. Part of being healthy is being mentally healthy, and being outside helps with that.

I’m going to walk about two miles. It’s been a while since I’ve walked over two miles. Not in the house, and the last time was probably at Lake Atalanta last year. When the surge happened in late 2020 I decided it was time to “tighten the perimeter” and basically stop going out at all. But today I’m out here with no mask.

Our governor lifted the statewide mask mandate a few weeks ago. About a week and a half ago the Centers for Disease Control changed their guidelines for fully vaccinated individuals basically saying that you don’t need to socially distance or wear a mask in general. Of course, you still had businesses and other places which require masks. I’ve always tried to go by the CDC guidelines. I’ve always just followed those which are usually in line with the guidelines of my state health department. So I’m fine with going unmasked. I think it’s okay because the experts are telling me it’s okay.

Last Thursday I actually went out to lunch with seven other people from work. We went to a barbeque place and didn’t have to wear a mask there. Some people still were. Friday I went to lunch with my best friend Robert. I didn’t wear a mask then. Some people were wearing masks in the restaurant. But basically, the restaurants have a sign that says you should cover your mouth if you cough, keep your distance if you are sick. Even the grocery store where I went on Thursday masks were optional. Some of the employees were wearing masks and some were not. And about fifty percent of the customers were masked. Which kind of makes sense because I have been going there pretty much every week and got used to wearing a mask there, whereas I haven’t been going to restaurants at all. It makes sense that you would be in the habit of doing that. We talked about habits in the last episode. Hard to break.

It feels really good, to be honest. It’s the middle of 2021 so it has been almost a year and a half that we have been under this requirement. And I am in the United States. If you are in India things are much different right now. But I don’t think we’ll go backward in this. I think because we have abundant vaccine doses we won’t get worse and will probably be getting better at this point and will soon be at the point to which most people who want the vaccine have received it. In my state, about half a million people have been fully vaccinated and another half-million have been partially vaccinated.

Of course, the fallout from this will last years, or decades, or maybe even a hundred years until we have the next pandemic of this magnitude. That remains to be seen, but it’s good to be out here. And there are no longer any excuses, however valid, for staying indoors all the time. So hopefully this is the start of something new and open and somewhat back to normal. I don’t even have the mask in my pocket right now, which I have been doing this week just in case I have to go into a place where the mask is required. But that’s the way things are.

So if you have THE FEVER keep it, if you don’t, catch it, and I will talk to you next time on Running:AFEVER.