Acceptable Risk

Wilfred sweater (c/o) (similar)
Mango jeans
Dune London mules (similar)
Coutu Kitsch necklace (similar)
Mejuri ring (similar)
Linjer rings (c/o)
Daisy London earrings (c/o)
Location: Osborne Village – Winnipeg, Manitoba

Effective today, Manitoba begins the process of reopening. We have been relatively sheltered from the pandemic here, with less than three hundred total cases of COVID-19 at the time that I type this post. And yet, instinctively, I feel like this is too soon, like the worst is not yet over – or perhaps has not yet even begun. I worry that we are pushing the luck we’ve had so far. The problem is, I am struggling to make a logical argument to support how I feel.

There is inherent risk in simply being alive. There was before the pandemic, and there will be after it ends. Despite that risk, we survive and thrive. Human beings are incredibly tough. I learned, over and over, the decade I spent managing people who are too sick to work, that we can put our bodies through intense, often self-inflicted pressure and live to laugh about it. We are also incredibly vulnerable. After all, we might step out into the road at the wrong moment while our head is turned and be hit by a bus we never saw coming. Both of these things happen every day.

Until the COVID-19 pandemic, we silently upheld our collective agreement that the risk of being alive was acceptable. That we would live life to the fullest, hugging our friends, gathering in parks, sharing glasses of wine when there weren’t enough cups to go around, because it was worth it. In my heart of hearts, I still believe it is.

Since I heard the news that the provincial government plans to reopen, I’ve spent a lot of time contemplating the concept of acceptable risk. I know that most of the most joyful moments of my life – picnicing with hundreds of other people on a summer evening at Place des Vosges in Paris comes to mind, as does flying elbow-to-elbow with strangers in economy class on airplanes – were very often risky. There is no telling what viruses I might have contracted or unknowingly passed on to others. But looking back, I don’t regret it. Not even a little. I would never dream of taking any of those moments back.

The question is, therefore, what changed? I wonder why that was an acceptable risk then? And why it is not an acceptable risk now? The reality is, life for many people has gone on largely unchanged in quarantine. While I’ve stayed home, grocery store clerks, delivery personnel, healthcare workers and chefs like Ian have gone to work every day as they always did. In using their services, I have effectively accepted risk on their behalf, while choosing not to accept it on my own – which is the height of privilege. It can be argued, of course, that some people staying home is better than none. That is the argument I’ve chosen to make many times, and will continue to make as I remain mostly at home in the coming months.

But I know, as reopening begins, that there are risks that I, too, am willing to take. I already know what my own acceptable risks will be, because there are things I want badly enough to leave home for, no matter the potential danger. A visit to my hairdresser, for one. A holiday in Greece, if the country opens for tourism in July as planned, for another. And if I’m willing to take those risks, I can’t say that I’m unwilling to take others without revealing my hypocrisy.

I suppose only time will tell whether the risk that my home province is taking today is the right decision. But, upon reflection, I can’t truly say that I know it is the wrong one, either. After all, just a few short months ago, I would never have considered that it might be a decision at all. The inherent risk of being alive was one that I accepted. And it’s time for me to begin to relearn that acceptance. Because I can still remember that it was worth it. Every single time.

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