Masks Off.

This week we lost the masks in Spain. From Wednesday they were not mandatory indoors except for some specific places. After more than two years we got to see each others faces and smiles again.

Before everyone freaks out I have to say that here we had to wear then all the time and everywhere except outdoors. And even at some point we had to wear them at the beach and similar places. Unless in the water… So now being able to see the other’s faces is great. Although I must admit scary and I am not used to it anymore.

In a post pandemic world, (even if we haven’t gone through completely I think it is time to think positive and see further than just get stuck in the pandemic forever), have we forgotten how to interact with people without some fabric in between? When is it too soon or to late to go back to a normal life?

As you may already know, I work as a waiter in a restaurant, same place I did last summer. Back then it was mandatory to wear masks at work, and it was really unbearable, we had days of 35°C and having it was like breathing in a sauna. I remember having to apologise all the time to customers for I was sweating constantly. It wasn’t pleasant. Outdoors it wasn’t mandatory, but in the restaurant it was while not seated. Which meant clients would be without them as soon as the sat, and we weren’t. Still, back then not everyone had access to the vaccines and lots of people were scared and at risk of bad reaction to the virus.

I would like to think things have improved since then. With all the new variants the experts consider it mild now. I would like to state here that this is my opinion and in no way I want it to be like a dogma or something you have to do or follow or agree with. So I understand some people want to keep wearing them, others don’t, and other just don’t believe in the vaccination or even in the covid. Fair enough, but this is what I think about it. This been said let’s get to the thing.

We got used to have them all the time and everywhere and most of the people we have been seen this past couple of years are now strangers to us, we can’t recognise them without the cloth on their faces. This is a bit sad to be honest. Also funny if you think about how you imagined some of them and then you see them in real and sometimes they look like something different. The eyes are not enough anymore.

One of the first things I noticed about being mask less is that I need to remember to yawn in public. Before you could just do it and it would cover your mouth, now if you are not careful enough you will look like a whale fishing for shrimp. This is not pretty. Sneezing is OK because I didn’t do it with the mask on. I would have blown it away. Also you need to be very cautious with the mouth, since now nothing covers it so I need to make sure the beard, or the moustache now, is properly trimmed and the hair is not scruffy, and also now if you have something on your teeth people will see it. So extra care on that area.

They use to say we learned how to smile with the eyes, so it is funny to see people actually smiling now and it looks weird because many of them force it too much. You have people expressing too much happiness and it looks funny. Also the other way works too. You can have a neutral sight and still be cursing under the mask, except now no mask is there to hide it.

All those kind of situations are just amusing, but we also face another issue and this is when people don’t allow the other to make their one life decisions. Some were complaining about masks and now they do the same about not wearing them, or forcing it on others. In the end it should be up to each one of us to decide whether to wear them or not according to our own needs. Not because we are scared of the others’ reactions but because we need them or not.

The first day they were not mandatory anymore, people from the supermarket wore them anyway, even if they were not forced to. Then it was like who is going to be the first to take them off and then free the others from that first step. I went there on the second day and it felt funny. Some had it, some didn’t. It was nice to see people. Since then some have taken on the social media to fight their own weird battle for what is correct according to them. They were saying that we should all wear masks put of respect for the cashiers and waiters that have to do it.

The funny thing about most of the people that still wear masks, not all of them of course, is how they use them. I grew tired of seeing them in the shops with the cloth barely covering their mouths, nose out and even upper lip, but they complained about those not wearing them. It made me think about asking them why this use of masks. This also gets aligned with those who have used them so much that they are furry. According to experts if you want them to be useful and protect you from deseases you can’t be having masks that obviously have been with you for weeks. Besides it is uncomfortable, at least for me, having this fluff coming up my nose was not something I enjoyed.

So if you think about how many of us used to wear masks incorrectly, whether not the appropriate one, or the wrong position or even too much used, to be honest it was worth getting rid of them. Aside from that illusion that they were protecting us from the virus, they had little success in doing it properly, if they were not correctly used, once again. A huge majority of people would be in that situation. I can understand that after 2 years of constantly being and also been told that we were responsible for all the deaths, it is hard to lose the masks.

Nevertheless I think we have to go back to the way we were before them, and start living again a normal life. I would still consider their use should be introduced in our lifes, I am speaking from an European point of view, like to prevent allergies or when sick and having to go out. Before we would think people in masks looked weird, we need to drop that idea and treat them as another precaution media in case of need. Most of all I think we should let people do as they feel like without making them feeling bad about wearing them or not.

April 2022