Looking back over the past year, there isn't really much to see, at least not yet.
Yes, we are now past the one year anniversary with well over half a million dead from the plague, and yes, many states have lifted all restrictions due to the vaccine now being available. So, there is a vague scent of hope wafting in the late Winter air. But it has been such a long time without past references that there is no dancing in the streets, no real joy. In fact, someone I know just got the virus and was knocked down for a week. Make no mistake, we are not in any way out of the woods.
Looking back on the past year, I honestly cannot recall anything specific. It has all blurred together into some amorphic blob of time. Maybe it is some form of trauma response that is causing it? Maybe it is just for those of us who led an almost monastic life for all this time? We will only know after all this is over, if then.
It is insane to think that the end is literally a fraction of the time in seclusion, but it seems to be out of reach. I say that while even knowing people who have been fully vaccinated! We have drawn down into the singular, that is to say, unless it happens to me, I'll believe it. While this attitude is not good when facing a pandemic, it seems odd when one is about to leave it.
Because this is a massive country dealing with it and not a singular city as in "The Plague, there will not be a singular even that will announce that it is over. People will slowly be getting it and one by one the liberation will happen. I am almost certain that when the year ends, there will be some sort of mass celebration, most likely on New Year's Eve to finally have a communal ritualistic farewell to this season of pestilence. Face it, we like celebrations.
I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but I am planning on ending this when I am finally allowed to go out into the world, which would mean three weeks after my final vaccination. At that point, I'll cross over into the land of the liberated and be allowed into the new old world.
But that may not be for some time and all that is left is waiting. I am sure that the number of infections will rise with many people no longer caring, but I am going to stay put and go for the long game victory.
That being said, the idea of "a long time" is something I am no longer sure I understand anymore.
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