The COVID-19 Post

by Samantha Burmeister | Mar 10, 2020 | Sam's Thoughts

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that the COVID-19, or the Coronavirus is causing global panic. Whether or not you travel, there are a few things that I’d like you to hear, and I’ll share my experience as well.

Here is my uncensored, one-sided, Corona-related conversation:

• COVID-19 is not a racial issue. Please stop sending me ‘lol Chinese people’ memes. It’s Sinophobic (racism against Chinese people and their culture). You can read this post’s caption by another blogger for more information on Sinophobia and why nobody should tolerate the racism the virus is drumming up.
• Please stop sharing Italian jokes with each other. See the above bullet.
• Please stop making Corona jokes every time someone coughs. It’s not clever. Making cough jokes is not funny to those where a cough could be life-threatening.
• Please check in on your immunocompromised friends. Lupus, MS, Rheumatoid Arthritis, and Type-1 Diabetes are some of the most popular diseases that weaken immune systems. It’s probably super stressful for these folks, so see how they’re doing. Maybe bring them some girl scout cookies. Everyone loves girl scout cookies.
• Please wash your hands.
• Please do not buy up every mask and soap that you can find. Other people need soap and TP and bread, too.
• A friendly reminder to also put lotion on your hands. They’ll get really dry from all that washing.
• Please stop using all of these single-use plastics in the name of safety. I’ve seen single-use communion containers on IG, plastic being used to ship masks to everyone and their mom… just like… wash your stuff. I’m not a doctor, but maybe don’t shake hands with everyone or watch church on TV this week?
• Please keep living your life. Just be better about being clean, and nicer to people and the environment.

Oh also, I’m not a doctor. If everyone else gets to get hot and bothered and pretend to be internet experts about COVID-19, then that’s my peace.

If you’re still reading, then you probably want me to get to the part where I tell you how my life and plans have been impacted by Coronavirus. Here you go:

My COVID-19 Travel Experience (Or Lack Of)

I was planning to spend March in Italy. I was going to fly down on the 8th, go to a conference in Sicily, and take a few sponsored tours. Then, the plan was to go to Malta for a few days. The rest of the month was going to be spent exploring Rome, Florence, and Bologna with my aunt.

As it became increasingly clear that Italy was (1.) testing a lot of people (2.) getting back a lot of positive tests and (3.) beginning large-scale quarantines, I started to rethink my travels.

Wait, that sounds selfish. Let me also note that immunocompromised people can get sick from coming in to contact with carriers who may never show symptoms. Therefore, widespread, unnecessary travel is probably not all that moral at the moment.

I’ll also say that yes, it has the same symptoms as the common flu. So maybe widespread, unnecessary travel is always immoral if that’s the case. Again, I’m not a doctor. I’m just trying to do the right thing.

So, even if this is all hype and we’re freaking out over a flu strain, I had to face the fact that Italy was getting shut down. My conference was canceled, my family canceled their trips, and I was left to decide if I should go to Italy or not.

I chose not to travel, because politics.

• I didn’t want to get stuck in Italy
• Quarantine doesn’t sound like fun, and who knows what the future of traveling out of Italy will look like
• I don’t want to add stamps to my passport that could cause me issues in the future

Where I Stand Now

Right now, I’m staying in Germany. I’m going to wait a couple of weeks before making plans. I’ll get a boatload of work done that I wouldn’t have if I’d traveled all month. I also won’t have a bunch of Italy content, but oh well.

I’ve joined a gym, signed up for a bunch of free events on Facebook, and am trying to do things that will allow me to meet people.

My hope is that I’ll be able to spend some time in Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan this spring. My main priority right now is simply to wait before making future travel plans. The worst-case scenario is I’ll stay in the Schengen Zone until my visa runs up. Then, I’d head back to the states in late May. Not a bad worst-case, huh?

Thoughts?

I’ve turned the comments off on this post because (again) I’m not a doctor, and I’ve said some bold things. I’d much rather have a conversation via email than an agitated comments section. Feel free to shoot me a message and we can talk!

I Quit Drinking and Nothing Happened

by Samantha Burmeister | Feb 18, 2020 | Sam's Thoughts

I quit drinking after Christmas and have been sober since. In hindsight, the decision to quit drinking was somewhere between ‘Sober January’ and ‘I’m not an alcoholic’. Here are the 3 things I learned during my first 8 weeks of sobriety.

You see – my family LOVES beer. My uncle has brewed it on and off. Nobody in my circles find shame in having a drink with lunch, especially on a birthday, or when the grandkids are in town, or any other small reason for celebration. Beer is tied to connection, joy, and loosely to heritage in my family. I realized that it’s been a decade since the last time I went more than a couple weeks without a drink, so I decided to do a little experiment on myself.

Here’s what I learned after quitting alcohol:

It’s Not That Hard

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little concerned. Everyone on both sides of my family drinks. Some drink to excess, some drink more often than others. Part of me was doing a temperature check to make sure that I could stop if I wanted to.

So, I guess that means I’m not an alcoholic.

Nothing Happened When I Quit Drinking

I went sober right before I moved away from Dallas. In the first couple of weeks of sobriety, I went to visit family and friends for a few weeks and embarked on a nomadic lifestyle. I wanted to be more present in my relationships as they changed, and I succeeded.

I kind of figured that people would push me to drink. You know, the ‘just one, for me’ argument. Really, nobody cared that I quit drinking. My friends still drank. I didn’t.

My sprite intake has skyrocketed.

Nobody asked me to drive for them, or joked about it.

Nobody asked if I was pregnant.

Nobody even asked if I was an alcoholic or had a problem. Not even my doctor.

My skin didn’t suddenly get better. I didn’t lose weight, I didn’t start to get more of a ‘natural glow’. I feel like all those ‘go sober, alcohol is so 1920s’ websites were lying to me.

I didn’t start sleeping better. In fact, for about 6 weeks I slept like shit. Maybe that’s the only difference I really saw. Red wine is a great soporific.

One other thing that happened – emotions. I felt my move. I felt my goodbyes. A personality trait of mine is that I joke to hide discomfort, but when I was alone in my apartment some nights, I emoted better than I have in a long time. Maybe it was the lack of alcohol, maybe it was the move, but that leads me to the last thing I learned:

I’m Glad I Did It.

At the end of the day, sober is better. There, I said it.

I’m not going to be sober forever. But, I’ll say that there’s no single thing that alcohol makes better.

Drinking makes dancing in a crowded room a little less uncomfortable, but I went to concerts and bars and drank water. Or sprite.

Alcohol at the end of an ‘I need a drink’ type of day doesn’t make the day any better, and escaping those days with a little buzz doesn’t make me a stronger person.

Sobriety didn’t make the goodbyes and the ‘see you laters’ any better or worse. It didn’t make my mornings any better, or my workouts more impactful. I haven’t lost weight.

I don’t miss alcohol. To be honest, I thought I would, and it worried me that I might be thinking about it. After the first couple of weeks, I was used to ‘starting with water’ and since nobody really cared, I wasn’t explaining my sobriety to anyone and it was easy to forget about it.

Bonus Lesson Learned: I’ll Drink Again.

That said, I’ll go back. I’m going to Germany next week, and I’ll head to Italy the week after that. I’d be robbing myself culturally if I didn’t indulge – or that’s what I tell myself.

If anything, my ‘drinking days’ are behind me. That said, I’ll still drink, but I think it took living in the sun to see that dancing in the rain isn’t as romantic as I thought it was.

Cheers.