I know what you’re thinking, the coronavirus is still there, and we’re not quite there yet, and you’re totally right. But after almost 18 months of worry, pessimism and anxiety, I think it’s good to start looking forward again with optimism. As of posting this, I’ve had both shots, and in a week from now they should be completely doing their job. I know that many people around me are doing the same, and for a lot of us the end is in sight. I even have a party to attend with friends this weekend. I haven’t done that in almost 2 years. (I wasn’t a particularly social person before covid either, if I’m honest). What have we learned in the past 18 months? What should we remember from this dreadful period of time, and what am I personally taking away from this. Let’s take a moment to reflect on the global pandemic.
I still remember February 2020, when the first rumors of a strange virus entering our country started going around. I was playing an MMO at the time and remember talking about it and getting very mixed responses. Some people were already taking precautions, others were ignoring it completely. In hindsight we know which of the two options was smarter, but at the time, both seemed equally valid. Personally, I took a week off. Stress gets to me easily and I already wasn’t feeling super well. I figured I’d take the rest of that week off and rest up. The day later they closed schools and I wouldn’t see my uni building for… well… I still haven’t seen it again. If this was the early beginnings of the new normal, then the toilet roll hoarding was the start of the madness. I have to say I was guilty of being part of that too. We were about to run out anyway, but we did get a new pack a week or two earlier than we normally would have. In hindsight even that feels silly, but it would have been gone completely if we hadn’t because of the people grabbing piles of it. This was where it was still funny. It quickly stopped being funny.
Shops started closing down, I can point out several in our town that went under during the pandemic, and streets started emptying. Work continued and I had my internship to keep me busy, but a lot of other activities came to a halt. I had plans that got cancelled, and school started becoming a long distance thing.
I know I’m far from the only one who experienced this, but online class stressed me out so much. I couldn’t handle it and basically quit. I focused on teaching instead. I’ve talked about this before, but I taught special education for half a year, and did so two days of the week. This was not only very fun in general, but it was a great break from the madness going on in the rest of the world. These kids needed in person education more than anyone, and since the class sizes were tiny we managed to stay open and I could continue teaching. In doing so I completely neglected my own uni classes and by the time I got to the second semester of this year I was so far behind it was basically a lost cause.
But I also started this blog during the pandemic. I remember early on there was a lot of talk about people picking up new hobbies or projects during the pandemic. Making something out of this period of time that has us locked at home. And then there was also talk of people making sure that everyone knew just getting through this moment in time was enough on its own.
So now that we’re at the end I think it’s good to acknowledge the things that went poorly and the things that went well. And now we move on. Whether that’s with uni like me, or with your job, or anything else you had going on in your life that suffered because of the pandemic. We made it through, and now it’s time to pick our lives back up again. Let me know if there’s anything about your experience with the pandemic that you’re looking back on. Maybe something unexpectedly positive happened.
Opal Kaharis 