Yesterday my mom, who is living in The Netherlands, asked my twin sister and I, who live in Portugal, a fascinating vaccinating question. This took place in the family Whtspp group, that also includes our father, brother and sister, who are all living in The Netherlands.
To be more precise, my mom asked how the ( needle ) 'pricking' was going in Portugal.
Both my twin sister and I, at the same time, made a word joke.
My sister replied that all hedgehogs had been taken care of and that the mosquitoes would be next up. I replied that there were few mosquitoes so far this Spring.
Apparently my mom wanted a more serious answer and we weren't willing to give this, as our stances - and living situations - are very different these days and even more so, since last year. Let's say that we didn't leave The Netherlands without a reason, in the Spring of 2018. We have a very different view on the virus and the measures taken by governments worldwide and are aware of each other's point of view as it's pretty hard to hide it.
Also, my twin sister and I live far from the city / big cities, pretty much in the middle of nature.
A little later, my father hopped in with one little remark that made me feel pretty crappy.
It was something along the line of:
If you two don't get vaccinated, I can't see you.
This remark stuck with me for a while and made me feel pretty bad without knowing why exactly.
A little later, my brother reached out to me, one on one, to ask me what is was about the vaccines that makes me distrust them.
My Ego wanted to start head butting, by telling me that my brother just wanted to start an argument and win it ( something he's pretty good at ), talk me into getting vaccinated but I decided to ignore my Ego and trust that he was merely curious, wanted to understand me better.
It's fair to say that, since the virus took over the world ( especially figuratively ), there has been a lot of tension in our family and a lot of head butting. Up till yesterday, I couldn't feel but get annoyed, frustrated, angry, sad whenever the subject came up in our family app.
The text chat I had with my brother, yesterday, actually took away a lot of that tension. I replied to him, he came with his reasoning. We didn't just ignore what the other said but also tried to find points of agreement and mainly made an attempt to understand the other person.
In short, we didn't butt heads like prehistoric animals.
At the end of the conversation, both of us agreed that it had been good to chat about this and I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
I can't say the same about my parents though. I feel I might need to have a conversation with them about this one day soon ( perhaps after my mom has read this blog post ), to clear the air. There's still a lot of tension.
It's not like I don't want to see them, it has been almost a year and that is longer than ever before, but, as long as they expect me to get a vaccine first, it won't happen.
As I told my brother, I'm not an anti-vaxxer ( and I won't stop people from getting it ) but I am not a proponent of a vaccine that has been developed this rapidly, with no idea what the long term consequences are going to be for those that take it, a vaccine that is more or less forced onto us, if we want to maintain or retrieve our freedom ( whatever that means these days ).
All of this makes the REBEL inside of me extremely rebellious and wonder what happened to all those who used to be rebels in the past.
I am a family person and before the world changed so drastically, I had a pretty good relationship with all my siblings and my parents. I'm not saying that it's bad now. Far from that. But, it's fair to say, that the gap was growing and the same goes for the gap between me and some people that I've been friends with for a long, long time.
It's interesting that, when "The Thing" first hit, early last year, it seemed like we were all becoming more united ( we were all going through more or less the same ) but, since then, different camps started to form and there isn't really a middle way, it seems, nor is there a way back.
Nevertheless, I told my brother, several times, yesterday, that I feel that the truth is always to be found somewhere in the middle ( let's say between extreme conspiracy theories and the picture that the media paints us ).
Being a very sensitive person, it's clear to me that both extremes feel bad ( doesn't extreme always feel bad? ). Also, we all create our own truth and the only way to stay sane in times of extreme fear, is to focus on the positives, as much as we can.
I could make this a way longer post, but I mainly wanted to point out the importance of honest communication, the opposite of butting heads.
What about you? Have you felt an increasing gap between you and your family or friends ( from the past ) since "The Thing" took over the world? How are you communicating about this difficult topic with those close to you? Is it possible to not butt heads?
Much love from Portugal,
Hypersensitivosaurus ( sometimes knows as Vincent Nijman )
Still in the process of leveling up toward SuperZENsitivosaurus
The dino picture above this write up was drawn by me yesterday and colored today with water color. I am the raptor on the left, my brother is the triceratops but, in all honesty, it could be any one, even you and one of your family members or two people on the block chain butting heads.