If you’ve ever started a new job you’ve probably heard it from a boss or colleague upon showing up on your second day: “You came back!” Then you squeeze out a nervous laugh because you’re not comfortable enough yet to make a snappy reply and you also wonder for a second if there’s a reason — which you’re oblivious to — that you shouldn’t have come back. But you’re there and so you jump right back in and hope for the best.
This is me jumping back into Wherever You Go and hoping for the best. And you came back! I’m so glad.
All of us — husband and I and the two kids — are feeling better after making it through our first round of covid. It was a long two weeks of staggered isolation, nose swabbing, masking, and — let’s face it — a lot of griping and grumpiness. It feels really good to feel good again. I am hyper-aware of all things bright and beautiful: the autumn hues, the crisp blue sky, the sea of orange at the pumpkin patch up the street, the spices in my chai latte.
And at the same time, the past two weeks made me hyper-aware of how close I am and we are to the by-products — feelings and memories — of the pandemic. Even though things are way better now and thanks to vaccines I knew that my family would be okay, the experience was triggering. I vividly remember the fear, the uncertainty, the sadness, and the isolation and realized – we JUST emerged from it. We are STILL emerging from it in some ways.
(Just now as I was typing away somehow random letters were being typed in the middle of my paragraphs. It took me a moment to realize that I left my wireless keyboard and mouse unattended downstairs and the 5-year-old was typing gobbledygook away on it. I thought about leaving the gobbledygook in here because 1) you should get to be in on the fun too and 2) the placement of the gobbledygook wasn’t actually that inappropriate. But this is only my second post and I’m not sure I’m ready to be that crazy yet.)
Back on topic.
I realized how close those covid-time emotions and memories are to the surface and how little time has actually passed since we were really “in it.” And I ended up with this fierce hope that we can all cut ourselves and everyone else some slack. I hope that we can resist the temptation to try to bounce back immediately from a big thing in human history that changed all of us. I hope that we can savor each other and delay, for as long as possible, the return of unrealistic expectations and continuous competition.
Yesterday at the doctor’s office, I overheard a conversation that went something like this:
Patient: Hi, I’m here to check in for my appointment.
Receptionist: Oh hi! I love your necklace!
Patient: Thanks! It’s actually an old pocket watch.
Receptionist: You know, I usually wear my pocket watch, but I didn’t today. Pause. Did you know that kids today can’t write in cursive or read an analog clock? It’s a shame.
Patient: Oh yeah, well not mine! He’s just five, but he can read cursive and tell time on an analog clock. A lot of kids just spend too much time on screens.
Okay I get it. Keep the traditions alive. Screens are rotting our kids’ brains. Yeah, yeah.
But how about this.
How about we talk about how damn amazing kids are. All of them. Including the kids whose parents don’t teach them to read cursive. Or show them how to read an analog clock. Or have time to go to a mid-afternoon doctor’s appointment because they are an under-appreciated essential worker…but don’t get me started on that. Let’s talk about how kids have lived through this big thing in human history — lots of them using the dreaded screens to stay educated during virtual school — and they’re doing really, really well. And so what if they can’t read cursive?! They’re all practically junior epidemiologists at this point and you are just sad that kids know more about technology than you do.
I say we try our best to point out the positives to ourselves and to each other for as long as we can genuinely mean it. And let’s celebrate — for a whole friggin year okay? — the fact that despite the desolation that covid caused, there is still SO MUCH LIFE.
Now if I don’t go make dinner now I’m going to have a very hungry soccer player on my hands asking where the tacos are because apparently it’s Taco Tuesday, bruh. 'til next time.
Keep doing this please!