Hug me. Exiting covid…
Old behavior brings new joy.
2020. We spun around in the fog of worst case scenarios, dire predictions and fear.
We’ll never shake hands again. No more hugs. No more concerts. No more dinner parties. No more playgrounds or picnics or potlucks. We’ll all keep working from home whether it’s a good way to work or not. The vaccine won’t work. The vaccine will destroy our DNA. The variants will take over our immune systems because people won’t get vaccinated. We’ll all work from home, in isolation, forever. Our kids are damaged and won’t recover. Our parents are depressed and won’t recover. Nothing will start to open up until 2023.
I heard all of these and more. Honestly, it scared me a little. I’m optimistic by nature, but covid was already nudging my low level anxiety in the wrong direction, so I pushed back on all the gloom and doom for the first three or four months. I tried to lessen the conversational fear with reminders that other pandemics hadn’t changed us forever and our science is so much better now. I tried to be cheery with my friends and colleagues about the coming of a vaccine and days ahead without compulsively soaking our hands in alcohol and with a return to lipstick.
It wasn’t that I didn’t take it seriously. I did. I believe in science. I believe our responsibility for the whole in a situation…
