A year later...

At approximately this time last year I was looking around my office deciding what to take home with me when I left that night. I knew I wasn't coming back to the office the following Monday, but I had no idea I'd still be working from home a year later. I had no idea that my visit to a restaurant that night would be the last such visit for (at least) a year. I had no idea that the casual get together between friends wasn't going to happen again for the foreseeable future.

 

I've been incredibly lucky in many ways. I have been able to work from home, and largely stay home otherwise. I live with someone I like to spend time with on a daily basis, four snuggly cats, in a house that I love. My family and most of my friends have been healthy. Because we didn't travel in the summer (and because the necessary background work was finished the year before), I was able to do more work in the garden than I'd been able to do in the six previous years we'd lived here. Because I didn't have to commute (or even go outside) on a daily basis in the winter, my chronic pain has been better managed than it has been in the last 27 years.

I've been amazed at how people have come together to help each other, through volunteering, through donations, through sharing a funny meme, and checking in on each other. I've been disgusted at the selfishness of people who refuse to make sacrifices for the benefits of others, who whined about having to self-isolate for two weeks if they take a southern vacation this year, who think they're above regulations or that they can't possibly be the person who becomes the super spreader when five different households get together.

I miss seeing my mom.  I miss seeing my family. I miss seeing my close friends and my long-distance friends. I miss some of my coworkers. I miss going on trips. I miss a lot.

I don't miss going to the office. I don't miss small talk. I don't miss my commute. I don't miss eating junk because I'm bored or lazy and it's cheap and accessible. I don't miss many of the social obligations that we've not been able to have this year. I don't miss a lot.

I didn't pick up any hobbies during the pandemic. I already baked, cooked, gardened, read, created art, and (of course) collected. Aside from working full time, I feel like I've been in training for when I retire. I've been damned lucky so far and I know it.

We're marking the one year anniversary of the "last normal day" by ordering take out from one of our favourite restaurants and sitting around in our pjs. I'm going to bake something for dessert. The moment someone offers me a vaccination I'll be right there, but in the meantime there are so many people who should be ahead of me in line. They should have the first chances to be vaccinated. In the meantime, I'll sit here with my collections, my books, my plants, my art, my baking, my cats, and my person and look forward to the things I'm looking forward to.

Elf