I have to admit, I’ve been a little worried about the attitude of people in general. The whole masking thing has done things to us that could take years to sort out. And I’m not getting into any political debate on mask wearing or not wearing. This is purely thoughts about the fallout.
I was talking with a friend the other day. We kind of touched on this subject and she mentioned that she and her husband were discussing this very thing. And that she felt they somehow had lost the ‘highs and lows’ of life in the last two years.
Now, what she meant by that was that she wasn’t feeling great amounts of joy over things, but she also wasn’t feeling depression. It was just that things were kind of blahh. That they couldn’t work up any real interest in doing things in ‘the real world.’
Since my wife and I have been feeling much the same way, it struck a chord.
And I guess, since we’ve been kind of forced to not get overly upset about anything, and yet at the same time not let it get us too far down, that’s what’s happened.
However.
My wife is really looking forward to not having to mask again. For her, even on vacation in Hawaii, shopping and browsing was not that stellar an event, since every store we went into we had to mask up. While wandering along the sidewalks, it was pretty normal, but for every bit of shopping mania we indulged in, there was this background feeling about the masks.
Next week, here in WA state, we’ll be ‘mask free’ for the first time in a couple years. My wife is delaying a trip to Costco and getting her hair done – specifically because she wants to go to Costco without a mask on – wants to get her hair done without a mask on.
And, it’s there. It’s really out there. And by that I mean, this feeling that we’re arriving back at something again. My son and daughter-in-law took us out to see Colin Mochrie’s hypnosis event (more about that next week) at our local civic center. It was packed, they were sold out as far as I could tell, and it’s about a 500 seat venue. Yes, I live in a small town, so 500 seats is quite a bit.
I work on phone systems for a ‘real job’ and yesterday I had to go to a local Italian restaurant as they had a phone out. Of course, this was the busiest time of the day that I wound up being there, and it was just packed for at least two hours, people standing in line, 30-45 minute wait for a table. And honestly, I gloried in it.
Everything’s going to be ok – we’re going to come out of this, and we’ll be even stronger because of it.
Some people will have had a forced look at their lives, for instance, and will see “Hm, maybe I CAN do without that <insert material possession here> and we can live smaller lives without it being so horrible.” Having an enforced break in what we’ve just done by rote for years has made us reevaluate our lives.
The image that keeps popping into my mind is the Ventura Freeway. I drove the Ventura Freeway during rush hour (for nearly three hours) three years ago, and it was the single most harrowing event of my driving life. It topped even Miami. And as I look at that and consider the people who used to drive that route for two (one way) hours a day, and now they’ve been away from that for awhile. Going back to it would be like voluntarily having heart surgery without any anesthetic.
Only time will tell, but this could be the best thing that has ever happened to us. We might grab life with more gusto than we have in years, even before Covid hit.
Mmm – Ikea, here I come! 🙂