I Have Rehearsed for This

by Emily Lawrence

The actions of today are familiar to me. The scrubbing, the sanitizing, the decontamination. The hyper-vigilance. My right hand touched the car door, then brought the key to the ignition. Sanitize the hand and the key now. Do not touch your face. Do not touch your spouse, or your child.

I have lived most of my life with allergies—I won’t say “severe” because I’ve never been in anaphylaxis. But severe enough that an allergist once told me to avoid going outside, that I can’t eat at most restaurants, that I failed immunotherapy, and that I carry around a device to test my food to make sure brunch won’t send me to the ED, vomiting and in severe pain.

So, I have rehearsed for this. The invisible threat is my old companion. Finally, others see it too.