Well, it’s happening. We are slowly starting to enter into a whole new world. A world where we need to wear face masks in public. A world where we still need to maintain a social distance from each other. A world where we need to remember to bring your keys, phone, wallet, face mask, gloves and hand sanitizer before we leave the house. And when we leave the cocoon of our homes, we must learn to trust other people that they have socially distanced as well. Let’s face it – few of us have followed these things to the letter. Personally, I would have loved to secure a delivery slot on Peapod or Instacart instead of going to the grocery store every week.
As much as I want to support small businesses, I don’t think I’ll be running out to shop anytime soon. But I would like to get a mammogram which is way overdue. I’d like to go on vacation, but I have to think about what that looks like for our family. Regulations have been lifted in some places for the Memorial Day weekend. Experts say we won’t know the effects of this until Father’s Day. Will there be a spike in cases? Time will tell.
Looking into the not-so-distant future, will we be dropping Jenna off on campus in the fall? Will the high school reopen on a staggered schedule so some kids can attend? This is his junior year coming up. What will his college visits look like? Will those kids practice social distancing to the best of their ability? What will high holidays look like this year? All of it makes me incredibly nervous.
Meanwhile, I haven’t finished going through my pile of books I wanted to read. Truth be told – I’d need another six months in quarantine to get through them all. And there are still closets to clean and home improvement projects to work on. Not to mention that I’d like to lose a little more quarantine weight before I am seen in public again. To me, staying home still has its perks.
Everyone here is antsy to get back to normal life, but what is normal these days? We are about to find out.
While we are cooped up in our homes, there has been no shortage of incredible content online these days. Late-night talk show hosts are doing their monologues from their living rooms. I miss the audience’s laughter, but the jokes are still right on target. Disney did what they do best – a sing-a-long. Even news anchors are going off-script and saying what they really feel. I nearly spit out my iced tea when Wolf Blitzer called our president a chicken for not answering questions at the press briefing after telling people injecting disinfectants might be a cure for the virus.
One true gift this pandemic has given all of us is the gift of time. Before COVID-19, time flew by and now I realize that I was wasting some of it on things that were urgent, but not important.