I lost a friend to COVID. Don’t worry she’s still alive, she didn’t have COVID...she was plagued like many, with fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of a different opinion about fear. Fear of being wrong about fear. Fear of fear. I lost her because she no longer wanted to be my friend. It still hurts sometimes. Fear always does. Deep down, I’m sure there’s still that little five-year-old girl in me who’s begging to be liked, praying that someone will just love her, notice her, accept her for who she is. I didn’t want to share this. I felt embarrassed. Marred - like you would think that I’m a bad person for admitting that someone out there in the ether didn’t like me or what I put out there on the interwebs. Ashamed, questioning? Should I feel bad? Should I not have shared what was on my heart and soul about how I saw people treating other people - using a pandemic to shame, blame, vilify, and divide people who have a different opinion, different data sources, different discoveries, different solutions?