The Center People

When Trump and Hillary were in a sword fight for the coveted throne in the White House, my husband and I took a test. Which political party did our beliefs and moral convictions lean toward? I was a registered Republican and Wlad was a registered Democrat. After answering several questions, our results came in simultaneously. On his screen was the picture of Donald Trump and on mine was the picture of Hillary. My internal convictions were that of a Democrat and he, that of a Republican, the complete opposite of our political declarations, at-least according to our voting registry. I remember staring at Hillary's face. How in the world could I be a closet Democrat when my religious upbringing made me an open Republican? Granted, just 8 years prior, I took my son to the voting booth and recited what I had rehearsed, "Now, Aaron, this is a historic moment. We are voting for the first black president. If he wins, the message that there's a ceiling over your accomplishments become a lie. You will no longer be able to make an excuse why you cannot be somebody great in this country. You, in fact, can also become the President of the United States of America." Aaron, who is a juvenile diabetic, had low blood sugar at that moment. I'll never forget it. He looked up at me, sucking on a lollipop, not hearing a word. It would be a couple more months before he would tell me, "Mommy, did you know, Daddy is black?"

Wlad and I have since become self-proclaimed Independent, the people in the middle, the Center People, able to react with disgust at either side, and recognize the brilliance of opinions across the aisle. And we both strongly agree that the total right wing conservatives and the total left wing liberals are exactly the same. The same delusions, the same pathologies, the same cultic mind set, just one animal living in the jungle, while the other lives in some farm. Just watch youtube social experiment videos of liberals listening to Trump's quotes and react in visceral disgust, only to find out they were actually Obama's words. And watch extreme conservatives mock Obama's opinions, only to find out they were policies of Trump.

Absolute madness.

And they seem to be everywhere, just staggeringly everywhere. While the Centrists, people like Wlad and I, seem nowhere to be found. I don't think it's because we don't exist. In fact, I am going to believe in good faith that there are far more of us than even our political affiliations may claim. But society demands a definite answer. You have to choose a side. And if you don't, if you can see both sides of the argument and make a case for both and not damn the other to hell for a differing position...well, you're like that Bible verse in the Book of James: "A double minded man is unstable in all his ways." And who wants to post that they're unstable? I suppose with this blog, I just did.

This isn't a political blog, because I detest nothing more. But this site is my analytical observation of human behavior around me. And it is hard, nay, impossible, to observe society in today's day and age without seeing that politics no longer just make up the fabric of America, it is now in their bones, in their veins, in their neurons, and in their psyche. You absolutely cannot make an opinion about anything, even in this God-forsaken pandemic, without being accused of tyranny, socialism, white supremacy, and yes, even murder. And those words, as you're reading this, made you automatically categorize who's who in which side of the political party. If you did that, you've just proven my point.

But I digress...I've digressed in the last 4 paragraphs.

Who are the Center People, you may ask. Not in politics, but in this pandemic. Strictly Covid Centrists, strictly life on lockdown Center people. They--no, WE, are the ones who can say, remember the vulnerable and the weak, and consider our health care workers, and make sure our children are safe, but...please, for the love of sanity and prevention of devastating poverty, open the country!

Yes, yes. The Center People can truly see both sides, advocate for both, without accusing the other of tyranny or murder.

My children were quarantined the day the pandemic was announced. Their godmother is the most brilliant woman I know. One of the ICU doctors at Johns Hopkins, a consultant for WHO (yes, I know we hate WHO right now, we hate everybody), she advised me to keep my children isolated as they are both immunocompromised. My daughter was kept alive by a ventilator during the H1N1 pandemic 10 years ago, and Aaron has been a juvenile diabetic since 2 years old. Every cough, every heavy breathing, every deep sigh (constant in teenagers), I run out of my room and yell, "Are you all right? Do you have a fever?"

Although I've long left the field of nursing (I think my mom may still be disappointed about that), I've had inside information of the carnage of this virus. Born in a Filipino family, where being a health care worker is a rite of passage, I of course, have relatives who are nurses and respiratory therapists, seeing first hand the venom of Covid-19, slithering mercilessly from bed to bed, the serial killer in the hospitals of New York City.

Every night, my family gather together and pray with a list. The list of front line workers we know, doctors and nurses and FDNY and NYPD, out in the battle field with Corona, and the list of those ravaged by the infection. Night after night, days and weeks, we mention each and every name. And we pray for God to spare each and every life. And then we pray for comfort for families whose loved ones could not be saved by our prayers.

So believe me when I say, I truly care about keeping this virus contained and preserving human life.

But...I'm also an employer, with a reasonable amount of employees whose families depend on an income. And while I myself could say, money can be made again, I sit in meetings and receive e-mails and texts and phone calls of staff whose stimulus checks barely enough to meet one month's rent, has run out, whose unemployment money never came, who wonder about meeting their bills and feeding their families. And anxiety and stress mount daily as the city remains on lockdown.

I also foresaw from the start that something more pressing may happen in this quarantine. One of the very first things I did was reach out to collaborators to provide mental health counseling and group support on a regular basis through webinar meetings for our families and our staff, as I feared that anxiety would end up being a force to be reckoned with. Like a secondary infection, I feared that it would ravage through the mental health of those in quarantine. As predicted, I am witnessing that the longer we are on lockdown, the more our mental fortitude is diminishing. More and more friends and acquaintances and associates confess that they are struggling with depressive thoughts and hanging, barely, by a thread. And while we can share memes and stories of resilient survivors of the past from experiences far more horrid than COVID, this is the current reality and this is worthy of attention.

Because we service the autism community, I hear about the struggles of our parents coping with the effects of lockdown with their autistic child. Conversations from parents and clinicians and behavior techs revolve around asking me when I think this will all be over and when would our centers be open again. And I so very much wish, with my intuitive personality, that I could look at reliable data and make an accurate prediction.

So, you see...I can see and advocate for both sides. It is possible to want the city to reopen without being sociopathic, and genuinely value human life. It is also possible to advocate for waiting until the experts say it is now safe, without having a sinister, conspiracy plan to remove your civil rights.

Why must there be an accusation that someone desires mass murder when they say, "I really wish we could open the city already." And why must there be a cry of tyranny when someone says, "We should keep it close until it's safer"?

Is it possible to want both? To understand both sides? And instead of the theatrical hysteria of, "You must want people dead" or "We are under Tyrannical Rule!" we can stop and say we all want the same thing...to get life back to somewhat normal and wish no one dead.

Can we possibly weigh both sides of the argument and turn the conversation from charged declarations of judgment to a simple yet complex question: "How can we prioritize human life, protect the vulnerable, yet open swiftly to preserve the economy and save our mental health?"

If you've been asking that same question, and I am almost sure most of my readers have, then welcome.

You are one of the Center People.