I’ve been rolling around this word, plucking it out and placing it at the center of conversations since the beginning of the new year.

So yeah, it’s my usual feeling in January. Post-holiday blues, inversion sick, state legislative session angst, all of that stuff. But piling on the pandemic–with omicron cases propelling Utah to #4 then #3 in the nation–coupled with the ban on mask mandates, combined with not enough tests available to enforce “test-to-stay” policies in schools, and the weight feels unbearable. Even when I repeatedly test negative on my rapid at-home kits, I question the results. What about all of those false negatives? Perhaps I caught the virus yesterday, and it hasn’t yet had time to manifest itself. Maybe I’ll catch it next week. I don’t care. But I do.