I’m trying to appreciate everything before life gets back to normal. Does that sound strange?
Now that there is a vaccine, hopefully things will get back to normal fast. But it makes me think of this past year. We’re sort of in a rut now, but at the beginning, I really appreciated the whole concept of the world stopping. I wrote about it often.
I was looking out the window the other day — basically the same old scene for the past eight months
I think we’ll look back on 2020 one day and realize that it was an interesting time. A time to stop and reflect. A time to reset our lives. The Earth seemed to be resetting itself.
We may start to see the water and air getting a little bit more polluted. We’ll see more traffic and people on the streets; and more noise out there as industry and travel picks up. It will be life as normal. And we may miss the quietness and the time off that we had during 2020.
There was a lot of sickness and death; and loss of jobs and other things. But there were other things, too. Things that we’ll remember and appreciate once we are out of this strange time. Things we did that we may not ever do again. Walks we took, things we noticed, time we spent alone.
I remember walking around the neighborhood and noticing things I had never noticed before. I remember how quiet the neighborhood was. So desolate.
I had planned to get an RV of some sort, remember the Boho van and head up to the Carolinas, but in the interest of safety, I stayed put.
My living room faces a hotel that was torn town across the way. I remember watching that being taken down slowly over a couple of weeks. Every time I look out at the vacant land now, I remember that time period.
I remember seeing more people than normal out on the water — rowing, kayaking, paddle boarding. They don’t do that too often, now, but it was a daily thing back in April and May. I remember seeing how clean the water had gotten; and the air.
I remember ordering food from the supermarkets because I was afraid to shop with other people around. I remember only eating at home and then slowly venturing out into the neighborhood. Things are different now. I am out and about — social distancing and wearing a mask, but it took time to get out there.
It’s one of those watershed things where we’ll remember what we did before 2020 and after 2020. It’s a marker in our lives.
Originally published at tomversation.com on December 16, 2020.
