When I was a kid I never enjoyed the playground seesaw.

I was such a featherweight that I could never get down when a kid kept the seesaw up in the air.

Now that I’m a mature adult, I still don’t like being on a seesaw, especially the coronavirus seesaw.

I finally had the first and second vaccine and waited for enough time to pass to be what they call “fully vaccinated.”

I looked forward to that for months, thinking it would dramatically change my life. It didn’t.

I’m still on a seesaw, stuck in the air waiting to feel safe. Every time I think I’m going to have a safe landing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issues another “not so fast” warning.

If it isn’t the CDC playing doomsday scenarios, it’s the media. I noticed when they talk about new strains of COVID-19 spreading, they don’t use qualifying words like “might” or “could.” They make it sound like that new strain is sitting at your next destination just waiting for you to arrive.

Then I’m on the seesaw again, wavering between “ignore it” and “better pay attention.”

It gets tiring.

This week the CDC reiterated enough people have been vaccinated that we can get back a little bit of our old life. Very little, it seems.

Avoid indoor activities, it advises, even in your own home with friends. And keep your socializing to a few people. Very few, they advise.

There’s that confounding seesaw again.

This week’s paper said our local Moose Lodge was offering outdoor music in their tiki hut. That sounded like the starting gun for us getting out and starting to enjoy life.

The last time we were at the Moose tiki hut it was before the pandemic, and there were only four couples in the entire place.

We figured they wouldn’t have much of a crowd for a Saturday afternoon with 89 degree temperatures.

When we got there it looked like a used car parking lot. Every available spot was taken and the grass was also filled with cars.

You know what we saw when we got to the tiki hut dance floor? It was equivalent to spring break for seniors. People were squashed together at picnic tables like sardines in a can. Several hundred friendly people frolicked with bodies pressed together because of the crowd.

It was senior spring break for sure. This week’s paper warned COVID-19 numbers among the young set were escalating in the aftermath of college spring break.

I don’t know what it is about the kind of people who go to our local Moose, but I’m always amazed at how friendly everyone is to strangers.

It was so tempting to join the friendly revelers enjoying bean bag toss and other games in the glorious sunshine. They were having a ball and I wanted to have fun, too.

But I knew the aftermath of fun with so many people jammed together could have disastrous results. While I resisted the urged to join in, I felt like the kid left behind in the schoolroom while others had fun on the playground.

I just bought a sunny yellow teapot with the message: Life is short. Live it.

When, I wonder, can I start to live without worrying about COVID-19?

Every time I’m geared to start enjoying life like I used to, a friend tells me a COVID-19 story that stops me.

My friend Kay only left her home to go to two places: Church and to volunteer at our food pantry. It was enough to give both her and her husband COVID-19, even though she said she had the vaccine. She was told she didn’t wait long enough after her second shot. While she is fine, her husband is still struggling to survive.

Today, COVID-19 struck close to home. My 20-year-old granddaughter came down with it.

It’s irony that she and her college friends stayed away from spring break activities yet all seven of them tested positive this week - all because one of them was exposed and brought it back to the others.

My neighbor says that proves we shouldn’t stay home to be safe. She is enjoying life, going to concerts, working out at gym and eating inside at restaurants several times a week.

Her Facebook page often has group photos of their fun happenings.

Meanwhile, I sit here on my confounded seesaw, going up and down in confusion. Do I join the happy crowd? Or, do I just loosen my COVID-19 shackles a little bit?

I don’t want to be a fraidy baby. On the other hand, I don’t want to take unnecessary risks.

What’s the middle ground? Is there one?

Everyone has a different opinion, even married couples. My husband has gone back to the gym, an activity COVID-19 experts rate as high risk.

He’s right when he says inactivity and its resulting obesity is high risk, too.

So there I am, stuck up in the air on the COVID-19 seesaw, waiting to see if I remain there or if I can hit the ground running.

Why do I feel like it’s one of life’s tests with no easy answers?

What’s your opinion?

Contact Pattie Mihalik at newsgirl@comcast.net.