Yesterday I got to sit with some people in person. Almost a year to the day since everything around me shut down, and most people I know retreated into their homes for an extended siege, I was sitting, socially distanced and masked but face to face, in the sunshine with new friends.
It was a situation I know I took for granted until the year we have all just been through together. A quick glance at my March 7-12, 2020 calendar shows me so many in-person interactions that were the last for a long time, though I didn’t know it then.
Four trips to the gym, spending time with a community I love in a place that has since closed down
A “girls night” with dear friends, eating and sharing and telling stories
A design meeting for a play I never got to direct, and that no audience ever saw
A collaborative meeting with my team, and a lunch date with them
Not pictured on my calendar: my daughter’s senior year debate tournaments, my son’s travel basketball tryouts, my husband’s planned visit to see his parents
Some of these events and opportunities are gone. We won’t be able to get them back.
But we are, slowly and carefully, emerging into a new world. This place will have some of the same opportunities and occasions, and many we didn’t have before. I am hoping to hold onto the sense of gratitude I felt yesterday, and that I carry with me into today. What will you hold onto as we move into the new version of our world? What will you leave behind?
