Two Years

Two years ago today was our last normal day--the last day we went to work and school and saw people without serious concern that COVID was lurking.  I'd had an eventful shopping trip the night before that tipped me off that things might be changing, and we knew something might be happening soon with school and work, but hopefully not imminently.  In fact, when we had dinner with families from my bible study that Friday night, we still said "See you at church on Sunday" as we left...only for church to be canceled before we ever made it there.  Same thing with school and work--we left on Friday expecting to at least be back on Monday, and by Sunday everything had shut down.  The only thing I did at work on Monday was gather up my computer equipment and a few papers and come right back home.  And life was really strange for a solid three months after that, and obviously has never really gone back to normal since.  And at this point it's pretty clear it likely never will.

It's hard to even comprehend the last two years.  So many phases and stages, so much anxiety and loss, so many challenges and new experiences (though maybe not the ones we'd want), and so many changes in habits and routines.  We probably should have known from the beginning that two weeks wasn't going to be enough to put a dent in this thing, but I don't think most people would have guessed that we'd still be dealing with it two years later, or that some aspects of it have likely changed our society permanently.  If you would have told me that two years later I'd primarily be working from home, I'd have thought you were nuts, but here we are.  And I think for most people, they'll have to pry hybrid work from their cold, dead hands (or deal with a mass exodus) if they ever try to take it away.  I don't mind the office, but admittedly the home flexibility has been a pretty incredible revelation.

I'll never forget that shopping trip I took the night before the last normal day.  Wegmans was jammed, shelves emptied, lines snaking halfway through the store.  The initial panic of an imminent shutdown led to that first round of product shortages--sanitizer, soap, wipes, and of course, toilet paper.  It was bizarre and scary, so much so that I took a picture to remember it.  It's ironic that at the time it gave me vibes of a what a third-world or war-torn country deals with, and two years later those empty shelves are part of a horrifying reality in Ukraine, where war is now raging.  In fact, so much of what we experienced and complained about here is now happening there a thousand times worse--empty stores, closed schools and businesses, not being able to go out in public, dying or separated loved ones, all in the midst of bombings and being forced out of their homes or fleeing their country entirely.  It's crushing to see the news and impossible to comprehend the terror of it all, knowing how mentally challenging things were for us two years ago with circumstances that were still light years better than what they're dealing with now.  It is unfathomable to me.

Those early months here were hard.  We made the best of them, for sure, but when I look back at photos from that time--basically all tiny snapshots of bright spots or things I wanted to make sure I remembered--it's a roller coaster ride of emotions.  Some things were so simple--only going out of the house once a week, no activities, playing board games to break up the monotony, baking cookies every week, early signs of spring, finding joy in getting out for a run, starting our weekly take out dinner routine--and some were crushingly hard.  Remote school and work were overwhelming; missing family and friends was sad, especially at Easter; and the all-encompassing fear and uncertainty of a virus that was killing people in record numbers was such a heavy weight to carry.  We struggled badly with all the togetherness.  Sibling rivalry reached heights previously unknown, and compounded by boredom and struggles with remote school, life in our house was very stressful for a long time.  But we also had school car parades and creative birthday celebrations.  We did family Zoom calls and surprise drive-by Mother's Day flower deliveries.  We found joy in low-key outdoor outings and I toyed around with flowers in my yard.  Craig didn't have to travel so we had him on weekends year-round.  The slower pace wasn't all bad, and sleeping in (because we didn't have to go anywhere early) was lovely.  But the fear and change cast a pall over everything, no matter how hard we tried.  We learned how to wear masks and wipe down groceries.  We experienced our first brain-scraping nasal swabs at a drive-thru testing site and eventually learned how to give ourselves COVID tests.  I learned how to meal plan enough to do Wegmans only once a week, and although I now find myself going more often (darn hungry teenager), at least I'm still trying to plan meals a week in advance.  

As a whole I think that first year was a mix of wonder and worry.  Sometimes getting out of your rut has its advantages, and I think there were a lot of bright spots as we meandered through our new normal.  It was a chance to reset and do things better where we could, and I think most people put that energy into new hobbies or a baking habit or finding ways to maximize the things we could do safely.  It was still very limiting and we missed so much that first year, but I can appreciate how it forced us out of our comfort zone and encouraged us to do things we might never have done otherwise.  Even that first COVID Christmas was a great example of that.  Yes, we were worried that Jacob had COVID and we were so sad to be missing out on family time, but it was our (hopefully) one chance to have that full Christmas experience at home.  Was it the best ever?  No, but it maybe answered a nagging question in the back of my mind about what we might be missing out on and gave us a unique set of memories.  Over that first summer we did a couple outdoorsy things I probably would have had to beg the family to do under normal circumstances, and it definitely made us appreciate the little things a bit more.

But by the time the year anniversary came around and we realized we'd been at this for a year, I think there was a mental shift for me.  At the time we seemed to be gaining on the virus with vaccinations, which helped, but the reality of being "on hold" for a year was sobering.  When things started to go back downhill in the summer as delta began to make gains, I definitely think my zest for life waned a bit.  I didn't spend nearly as much time outside and my excitement to tackle house projects fizzled out.  My runs were no longer the escape they once were (due to both injuries and the effort needed), my flowers were diseased, and even our little nature adventures sometimes felt like more effort than they were worth.  It's been an odd mental struggle since then--where some parts of life have returned to normal or become a solid new normal, but the ongoing weight of the rest of life tends to leave me with zero energy to attend to anything beyond the must-dos.  I think it's the long-term stress response (we're not made to be on alert this long) compounded by the mental fatigue brought on by half of society seemingly "failing the group project", all the political division, and now massive inflation and the Ukraine war.  I know I wasn't alone in that odd weight--a lot of my co-workers expressed their surprise with a similar struggle months ago and it's likely only gotten worse.

I still don't know what's going to pull me out of this long-term funk.  My health right now is doing me zero favors, and the weather isn't helping either since we had more snow again yesterday, but this coming week looks a little more promising.  I don't know if good weather will help since it clearly wasn't enough last year, but I can only hope this year will be different.  I think a real vacation would make a huge difference, but I worry about the risks and how much harder it might feel to come back to reality once that momentous event is over.  We have some basketball travel ahead, but it's still not Disney or the Pacific Northwest or Atlanta or some tropical getaway, all of which have come up for consideration when we dreamed of getaways once we were comfortable flying again.  And now that we're at that point--in theory, anyway--I don't even know where to begin to coordinate a trip between school, work, Craig's game schedule, Jacob's basketball, and whatever else.  Our late summer trip last year felt hard enough.  But I think it's needed for so many reasons, not the least of which is to assure Jacob that we can do fun things as a family.

I struggle with a large portion of society acting like this is over.  Masks are off in schools and almost everywhere else, people are gathering without precautions, and many are traveling pretty regularly again.  Friday and yesterday I helped out with a fundraiser pancake breakfast for Jacob's new basketball team.  I was one of only two people at the entire event that were masked.  And you know what, I apparently caught the cold Jacob has been dealing with since Wednesday, so I guess they're lucky I took precautions.  I just wish more people offered that same courtesy in return.  I know getting back to normal should be a good thing, but it still feels premature to me.  I read an article documenting the end of other historical pandemics, and the year after the end of the pandemics tended to be worse because the illness was still circulating and people were no longer taking any precautions.  I think we're on track for the same thing to happen now, if only because all the people who got omicron around the holidays will be losing their immunity again by this year's holiday season.  I think a lot of the people who are comfortable without precautions have probably had COVID so they feel safe (even if they're not), but I am still struggling with letting this become something we just live with.  I have worked very hard to protect my family, and now that is much harder to do.  While I don't seem like I should be at risk, there are a couple funky family history things that make me wonder.  A probable coronavirus already took my taste and smell from me 12 years ago, so I don't want to know what COVID might take from me next.  Our friend who caught COVID from her husband when he exposed me a few weeks ago just had emergency quadruple bypass after having notably few complications in the 10 years since she had a heart attack at a young age.  What are the odds COVID pushed that along?   You just never know.

Making this much of a mental shift, from total protection to letting go, is really challenging.  Despite cases being quite low right now, I'm still hearing of people catching COVID.  Your chances of encountering someone with COVID in any general setting might be low right now, but if you do have the bad luck of ending up near someone who has it with no precautions, your chance of catching it is pretty high.  It should be encouraging that cases are low even though we're still primarily indoors, but it still poses a risk--if not to our health, then at least to accomplishing the things on our social calendar.  Even this weekend, I was planning on going to the Knighthawks game and driving to Buffalo to see my parents before they leave on another trip, but Jacob got a cold on Wednesday, by Saturday I had it, and Carter woke up with it this morning.  Jacob and I both tested negative, but obviously in this day and age you don't go out if you're sick.  And with that, all the rest of my weekend plans were dashed.  It's just that easy, and this wasn't even COVID.  We have so much coming up, from basketball tournaments and jury duty to Easter and a wedding, and we just can't afford to miss any of it after two years of missing so much.  

Sometimes it seems like it was just yesterday that the world changed, and sometimes it feels like it's been so long I can't remember what life was once like.  In many ways we've adjusted well, and in others I'm not sure how we ever get back on track.  I'm thankful the kids have been in school this year and have done so well, and I'm happy that many parts of life seem to be getting closer to normal (even if we're still masked when doing them).  There's no doubt in my mind that we'll look back on this time years from now as a point of change in so many parts of life.  There will be "pre-pandemic" things and things that spawned from the pandemic, from work life changes and habits to safety precautions and the state of our mental health.  The experience has made me grateful for many of the small pleasures in life and appreciative of the comfort our home provides even in the midst of ongoing mental struggles.  My perspective has been changed forever in so many ways.  I do hope that someday soon I feel more comfortable getting back to normal, but for now I'm going to continue my "one day at a time" mantra I've been sticking to since this began.  A year ago I was hopeful that we were approaching the end, but we all know how that worked out.  So I'm pretty hesitant to make any assumptions this time around, but I hope that we at least get a solid six-plus months of near-normalcy to rejuvenate us a bit, and that whatever happens in the fall is considerably less than what we had the year prior.  It's been a strange couple years, and as we head into Year Three, I can only pray we make it through unscathed, happier, and much more at peace with all we've been through and with whatever lies ahead.