I’ve Got My Shot, and I’m Not Going to Waste It.

Don’t waste yours.

Jessica Wildfire
6 min readFeb 11, 2021
Photo by CDC on Unsplash

A local pharmacy announced shots for teachers only. It was Monday morning. I dropped everything and scheduled an appointment. A few hours later, I was getting jabbed in the shoulder.

It was only yesterday that I was complaining to myself how I’d probably have to wait until June or July, or even August, and maybe find a new job if my school forced me back into the classroom before then.

Now I’m one of the rough 30 million Americans who’ve gotten at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Life has been hell for the last year, but now my hell is drawing to a close.

What does life feel like post-vaccine?

In a word, hopeful.

Expect a flood of intense relief.

Most of us have felt like hostages for the last year, scared to leave our homes and constantly scrolling the news. We lived on the brink, always one anti-masker or careless friend away from catching a life-threatening illness. Even if we weren’t staring at our phones all day with a knot in our stomach, we were just waiting for the next bad thing happen.

We’ve been waiting for things to get worse.

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