“In sickness and in health” in action
A tale of true love, commitment, and N95s on the dance floor.
The other weekend, I saw two of my good friends get married to each other. It was a beautiful outdoor ceremony on a gorgeous Colorado day—one of the few in the past month when it hasn’t rained! This was a long-postponed wedding, with many life events having occurred in the three or four years since their engagement—including getting officially married—before they finally got to walk down the aisle in front of an intimate gathering of family and friends.
These two are some of the most fun, productive, and passionate people I know, and their declarations of love and commitment to one another were no different. The evening was absolutely lovely, and I enjoyed getting to experience a somewhat “normal” and celebratory life event since life significantly shifted in 2020.
It was not the couple in the wedding dress and suit sitting at the head table, however, that impressed me the most that night. Instead, it was the couple I sat with during dinner at an outdoor table in the fresh air, under a beautiful Colorado golden hour of sunlight.
Like me, these two also requested accommodations to sit outside, to avoid sharing the indoor air of dozens of strangers over dinner, who could be unknowingly carrying an active COVID-19 infection. Once we realized we were on the same “team,” so to speak—pulling out our high quality masks to sneak inside and grab cocktails and dinner—our inner nerds came out, and I likely unleashed an excited, incoherent babbling of chatter that is only released these days when I meet another covid conscious person. I probably accidentally interrogated them about their lives and work over dinner, in my excitement. Sorry guys!
There is just something so refreshing about spending time with other people who understand your worldview and practice similar life choices in 2023. When most people have moved on from mitigating airborne disease in their daily life, use the phase “post-pandemic” (much to my dismay), and rarely or never speak about vaccines, testing, masks, or god forbid, the “c-word,” to spend time with other people in person who live in the true reality that covid still plagues us with is one of the best feelings that exists these days. I can simply just be myself.
As the evening progressed to the more indoor-focused elements of cake cutting, first dances, and the dance floor and reception, this couple and I drifted apart. But I saw them throughout the night, with their well-fitted N95s, navigating everything just like anyone else there. These two rocked it out on the dance floor, sipped drinks and ate cupcakes, and had a great time with each other. I watched them with admiration, empathy, and envy—because while this couple doesn’t have much of a choice when it comes to diligently avoiding covid infections (one of them has Long Covid), they are fully committed to their proactive health protections and to each other. They masked up and rocked the whole night together. I could feel how much they cared about each other just from their small actions and looks, like auras hovering around them. And I want that for myself, too! Like, badly, you guys. Real bad.
I too, lingered in the outdoor areas as much as I could, by the french doors left open throughout the venue, and kept a mask on 95% of the time when indoors. Yet I snuck in a bite or drink with my mask off while at a cocktail table next to some of these open doors, not keeping a perfect record for the evening. I forgot to switch from my outfit-matching KN95 to my more breathable (and safer) N95 for the dance floor until the night was almost over, caught up in the moment until I wondered why I was so out of breath from dancing (I can’t be THAT out of shape!). I would give myself an A- for the evening: opting in to all the options I had to be outdoors, and using a high quality mask as much as possible, except for when my excited, over-socialized brain briefly lost track.
(One week out, I have tested negative on several rapids and a Lucira. And like always, I continue to mask in a well-fitted KN95 or N95 in all public/indoor spaces.)
The couple hosting the wedding also did a great job of keeping things lower risk for the most part: holding the ceremony outdoors, planning an outdoor dinner table for the most risk-averse, and leaving many doors open during dinner and dancing. The only better options would have been to build and run some air filters inside during dinner and dancing, and/or to hold the entire event outdoors.
Yet in my own small slip-ups I felt like I failed this dedicated masking couple, who recognized me from Twitter (I still find my internet “fame” quite baffling). I didn’t notice them leave, and I was left with a pang of guilt for not getting the chance to tell them how grateful I was to meet them and to not be the only masked person there. How I wished so badly that I also had someone to help keep me accountable that night, to keep me from slipping up in a psychological sea of “post-pandemic” people. How I wanted them to know how much they inspired me to do better, to be better every day for myself, the people in my life, and the (fingers crossed) future partner I might have one day.
The typical wedding vows go something like, “I, [name], take you, [name], to be my [husband/wife], to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, I promise to love and cherish you.” The couple who got married (again) that day didn’t use these vows, they wrote and read their own. But the line “in sickness and health” has been put through the wringer in the past 3.5 years for many couples, married or not. And yes I’ve heard tragic, upsetting stories of (mainly women’s) partners leaving because they “can’t do this covid thing anymore,” either because of prevention, protection, or caretaking responsibilities. My heart has also broken so many times simply trying to date in this post-2020 world, as a high-risk and covid conscious human. It feels like this vow has been broken more than it has been upheld in society, and I have been losing faith in it.
So to see a couple that so fully embodies this vow, a couple that lives their values in public together, side by side, in it together? It gave me such big feels, such good emotions. Honestly just writing this makes me want to cry (again)! Their accountability to each other and the people around them was uplifting. It was rejuvenating. It gave me hope that we can keep doing this, because we don’t just do it for ourselves, we do it for each other.
I am so thankful for this couple, the chance to meet them, and all the couples (even celebrities) out in the world every day who show what it is to live the vow of “in sickness and in health.” We all deserve someone willing to live our most important values alongside us every day, willing to buck social norms and be the awkward one in the room because they care about us and our health more than how they look or what others think of them.
It gives me hope and allows me to continue to hold my standards high, as I look for someone who in 2023 and on, is willing to commit not just to me, but to protecting themselves and myself from a life-changing, airborne virus, when very few people or governments will.
And for better or for worse, you’ve now read my very first Substack post.
Yours,
Kelsey