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Musical chairs was historically sold to us as a fun party game; a light-hearted jape whose winner was chosen largely by luck and the losers were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
When it was all over everyone gathered together again for Rice Krispies buns and bowls of Meanies. However, casting my mind back to any game of musical chairs I ever played, I remember starting from a baseline of low-level anxiety, building to a melee of panic and mania as one by one the chairs were removed from the game and it became every eight-year-old in a Garfield jumper for herself.
I can relax a bit on reassuring everyone I come into contact with that 'I did my antigen' that morning
Those who progressed to the final rounds would become obsessed with getting a bum on a chair at any cost and mince around the remaining seats, knees bent and eyes flying wildly to the deranged adult with their finger on the pause button. You’d rather be forced out of the game than continue to Lord of the Flies it around the good rug.
The relief of finally getting Covid is kind of like that relief at being forced out of a maniacal game you don’t think you can win, with your chances being pulled out from under you like diningroom chairs. The constant pressure of the uncertainty is gone.
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I can stop – for the time being anyway – wondering if every sniff or headache is the onset of The Symptoms. I can relax a bit on reassuring everyone I come into contact with that I “did my antigen” that morning and it was negative, because after two years I finally got a positive.
The huge lifting of restrictions in January felt like three of the musical chairs were removed in one go. The change was so sudden that I was briefly convinced it was the biggest exercise in burying bad news the Government had ever engaged in. I thought it was covering up the fact it had done something truly unforgiveable like sold Johnny Logan to the Russians or killed Michael D's new dog, or been completely useless at ensuring safe and affordable housing for everyone in Ireland.
With the restrictions so greatly eased and Omicron still spreading like chicken pox at a soft play centre, it was clear that Covid was going to be allowed to dip in and out of people en masse.
My attitude changed from “I can’t believe I dodged Covid for two years, maybe I fell to Earth as a baby like Superman?” to “I will inevitably get Covid; it’s just a matter of when”.
More and more people like me, who had wondered if they were somehow genetically immune, like Matt Damon in Contagion, were jolted from their Hollywood daydreams with the "ring ring" of a phone call from contact tracing. So, when the two lines on the antigen did appear, it was with a certain level of emotional relief.
I had been extremely vigilant for so long to avoid Covid. As someone in a bigger body with a high BMI, I was in a higher risk group of complications from the virus and carried a huge amount of shame and fear. I also live alone and was terrified of being very ill will no support. I was keeping my world very small and figuratively holding my breath to avoid feeling like I was literally holding my breath.
As restrictions eased, I relaxed very slowly. I would say my vigilance was still at 75 per cent when I got Covid (not that there’s a moral value attached to trying to avoid a virus that you’d nearly get just from looking at someone funny). But to finally get it, having been triple-vaxxed, and to have it relatively mild – very sore throat, chills, aches and a curiously numb tongue – I have to admit, it feels like a relief.
My thoughts turn to the people who are still living in housebound hypervigilance: the people who are immunocompromised either by illness or treatment, and the people who cannot take the vaccine for medical reasons. They don’t have the luxury of anticipating the positive test with the silver lining of relief. They can’t reconcile with letting the virus run through an increasingly maskless population. How helpless they must feel.
My “relief” is an insult to them, then. In fairness it feels somewhat ridiculous to me too. As I write, I’m not even out of Covid isolation yet. I lost my sense of taste on day four and have no idea what’s coming down the line. Am I still going to worry that every sniff and cough is a new infection or a new variant?
I have a friend who had Covid over a year ago and hasn’t been able to return to her pre-illness running. I have a friend who’s had Covid three times, despite her vigilance. I have a friend with cancer who’s still living in lockdown so it feels selfish to admit that, for the time being, I’m out of the game.