In his poem, “Everyone Sang,” Siegfried Sassoon captures the day that peace was announced. He wrote, “Everyone suddenly burst out singing; And I was filled with such delight; As prisoned birds must find in freedom.” Today, the B.C. government announced that restrictions will be slightly lifted.

It was less everyone suddenly burst out singing, and more “some people burst out singing and then other people shouted that those people clearly hadn’t studied the Spanish Flu and were reckless and probably going to kill us all #StayingHomeSavesLives.”

Or “everyone, after a brief moment of singing, assured everyone else that they were still going to keep everything mostly as it was, but maybe see their grandparents — or maybe even not that.”

Or “Some people hummed a little, and other people reminded them about the Spanish flu, and then other people reminded those people that other countries have reopened and avoided a spike in cases, and we’re doing more contact tracing and testing, and then everyone decided that instead of singing they wanted to instead bang pots and pans for the healthcare workers at 7 pm.”

Or “everyone wasn’t sure if they were supposed to sing or if they even felt like singing because, on one hand, it gave their heart a tiny spark of joy to think that their kid could see another child or hug a grandparent, but on the other hand, it’s likely that everyone will take this to mean ‘business as usual’ and there will be a massive spike of cases.”

You can see why I’m not a poet.

So, today was a strange one. For the past week, I’ve been sick. I have no idea how I got sick, because I’ve been so careful. But I got sick all the same, and for several days, I couldn’t swallow. I lived on popsicles and pudding. I’d lay awake at 3 am wondering if my shortness of breath was anxiety, or Covid.

I tested negative for Covid, thank goodness. And today was the first day when I felt like I’d rounded a corner and was getting better. But I feel acutely how dependent I am on other people’s actions, and how lucky I was. I washed my hands and sanitized everything and wore a mask and grocery shopped once a week, and I still ended up sick.

So, the close call is looming over me. But the joy that my daughter could see her grandparents, or play with her good friend, is also tugging at me. It looks like we are in this for the long haul, so what happens next becomes a complicated matrix. If I let my daughter see her grandparents or another kid her age, she might get sick. She might make someone else sick. But if I don’t, what’s the cost to a year spent without friends?

My calculations would be different if I had an older child, or more than one child, or if I wasn’t working, or if I had no children, or if I had a yard, or if I had a big house or a woods nearby. A thousand variables, and here I am still dependent upon other people. I could stay the course and still get sick. I did stay the course, and I did get sick, just not with Covid.

Until there’s a vaccine or an effective treatment (and we are so far off from those), there won’t be a ceasefire or a moment where everyone bursts out singing. There will be no celebration on the streets. There will just be these small, fraught moments, where every step forward is scary, and where the right thing to do won’t be obvious until years later.