Sure, I watched healthy people die, but the economy!

You could convince me that Barstow, California was melting and I'd have believed you.

I’ve seen enough of the national news media, the “respectable” sorts like the Washington Post and New York Times, buy into Trump’s stolen Reagan line asking “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”

Well, in Oct. 2020, I was stuck inside after the full-time job I went to college for sent most of us part-time to offset pandemic costs. I was on my third play through of Persona 5, and by November of that year I’d written something like 150,000 words of fan fiction. Am I better off now than I was four years ago? Does that sound like the behavior of someone who is doing well?

I promise you, it’s not.

If the interpersonal explanation doesn’t work for you, there’s also the fact that there isn’t a tractor trailer being used as a morgue driving through New York City because there’s nowhere for the bodies to go right now. Last I checked, Robert Kraft hasn’t had to send his private jet out to ensure the federal government (wonder who was responsible for that at the time?) wouldn’t steal the PPE being shipped in.

It’s usually around three examples that I start considering it belaboring the point, so I’ll most past just the COVID lockdowns examples. Here’s my point: If I’m not better off now than I was four years ago, it’s because I’m not over the trauma from four years ago. I watched people, perfectly healthy people who ran 5Ks and ate that weird green shit I used to sell at the grocery store die from COVID. My best friend spent days in the emergency room over it. And COVID is still here! We just pretend it’s not! We just pretend taking vaccines and masking seriously long-term wouldn’t have worked, but it absolutely would have. I’m fully vaccinated and have never had COVID, though I’ll admit I need to be better about masking when I’m going into crowded places.

It’s all so goofy because everything from 2016 to 2020 felt cursed, and now we’re acting like things haven’t been going fairly well for a few years.

I'll answer the question, myself: Am I better off now than I was four years ago?

My job went back full-time, and I’ve been promoted, and I’m making money for the first time ever. I’m within two months of my car being paid off and within a year of my student loans being paid off. I cook a lot more meals now, and I stopped drinking, and I’m much more likely to go for a long walk, which I hear is a healthy habit but my feet disagree. I recently got to go on a road trip I’ve wanted to do since I was a small child.

So, yes. Things aren’t great still, but I’m infinitely better off than I was four years ago. It’s not close. I think a lot of people would find the same if they just stopped, took a deep breath, and let themselves have a real, self-aware thought for the first time in their lives.