I consider masks to be microaggressions against me. I can’t safely wear a mask. I’ve tried, repeatedly. The results are the same. Wearing a real mask properly threatens my life. Because I can’t wear a mask, I haven’t been able to work in any official capacity, I haven’t been able to go to in-person medical appointments, and the church my children attend still won’t let me in the door. Yes, I live in a deep blue mega-city.

The people around here want me to stay home and die. They want my voice silenced, because I can’t wear a mask. They slander my character on a regular basis, insisting that I don’t care about other people, that I intend them harm. That’s just projection. It is they who wish me harm. It is they who don’t care about other people besides the token identity group of the month who they give lip service to, but don’t actually empower. It is they who are selfish, terrified of having their own character tarnished with the truth. The truth is that they did not check on me, they did not help me, they did not do anything but yell at me and insist that I never show my face in public again.

According to the liberal logic, it is the impact of a thing that matters more than the intentions. The impact of masks has caused more harm than it has prevented. Quite frankly, masks saved zero lives. You can claim that they delayed infection by a mere 1%, but that is not a life saved. The harms of masking children for two years straight around here can not be undone. Those children didn’t learn how to read facial expressions. They did not learn how to talk properly, or to be able to read properly. Masks were a signal that you can’t be friends, no hugging, no hand holding, no games of tag. Children die when they don’t receive any loving touch for too long. Masks contributed to suicides. Masks kept the deaf and hard of hearing isolated, unable to communicate or understand.

Almost four weeks ago, the Statewide indoor mask mandate was dropped, with the promise that it could return at any moment, even though the vast majority of the actual science says that cloth masks are worthless and don’t protect anybody from any virus. I still can’t fly on an airplane or ride a bus. I still can’t go to an in-person medical appointment officially, although most places will allow my fake mask these days. I still can’t enter my children’s church building because, they “want to stay safe” and so that “no one will stumble.” Hate to break it to them, but masks are an insurmountable obstacle, and they make ME stumble. They don’t care. They don’t hear me. My voice is silenced. Oh, but I could worship online as a reasonable accommodation. So I don’t worship. Online worship is “separate but equal”. That just means it is separate all right, but definitely not equal.

You do know why I call it my children’s church instead of mine, right? God doesn’t love me. Jesus doesn’t forgive me. The Holy Spirit doesn’t accept me just as I am. I can’t wear a mask because of my genetic condition. Whoever created me, hated me and wanted me to suffer. The church can keep the serial child rapists among their members, to prey upon different children over and over again without reporting them and putting them away for life. The same church won’t allow me to enter the building. They hate ME, but they don’t hate the rapists. They hate ME, but they don’t hate the murderers, the burglars, the white collar thieves of billions of retirement assets.

I could wallow in the pain and heartbreak. I could remain a victim. Forever. While the people who did this to me feel nothing but smug self-righteousness, I could plot revenge. I could do that.

That feels wrong. I have more options than remaining a victim. Where is my power? Why did I give it away? How can I take my power back from this? I know it is possible. The thing that is holding me back has to do with seeing what happens when people take back their power to determine right and wrong completely and becoming unhinged and unmoored from reality. I still don’t want to be considered a bad person by others I respect. What happens when my respect for others goes away completely? There are still limits, and there are still boundaries. Why do I want to leave? The same reason an abused wife finally decides to leave. I can go somewhere I’ll be treated better. I can go somewhere I won’t be treated like a leper by those who used to be my friends. Somewhere people won’t trigger my feelings of abandonment by surrounding me with masked faces all the time. Somewhere better than this for the upcoming war and famine.