So, there’s an anniversary coming up, and it’s one none of us are happy about. Which one? It’s been almost one year since COVID-19 became the issue in the U.S. and much of the world. I chose March 11 for this post for symbolic reasons: it’s the one-year mark since the last time I went to a movie theater.
I saw 1917 on March 11, 2020, in case anyone’s interested.
We’d all like to get past COVID-19. I’m sure almost all of us want to meet in-person more regularly. Some have handled these feelings better than others. Some – e.g., Kim Reynolds in Iowa – have tried to force it before it’s time. But everyone shares in the dissatisfaction with the COVID-19 world.
In the last year, we moved from a ‘normal’ world (for better or worse) to a scary one to a manageable one (if you have a mask) to a strange adjustment to a ‘new normal.’ Along the way, we saw lots of new terms and oddities, e.g., ‘essential worker.’ As the vaccines make their rounds (I’m getting my first shot tomorrow!), let’s reflect a bit on this.
The COVID-19 Year
For myself: I learned a lot about myself over the course of 2020. Before March, my daily life was in some ways too busy. In the midst of fear of disease, I found myself welcoming a brief respite from in-person meetings. Now – a year later – I’m long past ready to go back to meeting in-person. But I’d still like to trim down my number of meetings! Maybe I can occasionally attend some of them online.
For the future: For what it’s worth, I’m expecting most things to eventually go back to the pre-COVID-19 ‘normal,’ for better or worse. That’ll take a bit of time. But I think that by about September 2021, daily live in the U.S. will look very similar to how it looked in September 2019. In some ways that’s good, and in some ways it’s bad.
For readers: How has it gone for you? Is it all bad? Have you learned anything about yourself? Have you figured out new ways of doing some things that are better than before? Did you lose your job last March or April (or later…)?
