I know this is no way to live. John Lennon’s words are still true, “life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” And yet, restricted life in the Age of Pandemics feels something like the terrible twos to me, something to be endured until better days arrive. But with each passing day, now approaching the one year anniversary of COVID, comes the feeling that it may never truly be “over”, some limits may linger for years. Whenever I read the words variant strains they sound crushing to me. As a consequence for about six months now I have found myself sleepwalking through the present, dreaming of the future. In particular, I have become obsessed with my 66th birthday, the date I set for myself some years ago as the demarcation day of retirement, or some form thereof. It’s all I’ve been thinking about.
Now, President Biden is placing travel restrictions on incoming flights. Other countries are banning travel of any kind. I see the death toll numbers, I read the stories of new South African, Brazilian and British strains, so I understand the necessity of these measures. It’s not even like I had plans to travel, its just another shrinking of my options which feels diminishing. Freedom of movement has always been like oxygen to me, something I never ever think about. It just is. Not so much anymore.
I am certainly not alone in feeling the isolation that comes with COVID. All of us do in one way or another. My thinking and understanding of COVID has gone through many stages over the past eleven months, from skepticism to bewilderment to acceptance of the reality. But merely acknowledging something isn’t enough unless it changes your behavior, and my behavior has changed over these months. There are the ubiquitous masks, the incessant hand washing, that chill that spreads over your hands like fog shrouding a mountain when you squirt that hand sanitizer. At work there are virtual appointments, which feature me smiling awkwardly at a computer screen while I try to navigate the two second time delay.
Then there is the matter of our friends and neighbors who have come down with this dreadful virus, and the feeling of helplessness that overwhelms. When our next door neighbor got it, at least we could check up with her from across the way to see if there was anything she needed. When dear friends of ours in our church small group came down with it we were limited to delivering a meal for them on their porch, when what we really wanted to do was march inside and clean their house, run errands and hug them close. Speaking of that group, our last face to face meeting was almost three months ago and that was a rarity in and of itself. Church? It has morphed into just another screen experience. We briefly started meeting together in reduced, socially distanced numbers, but then there was a COVID visitation among several volunteers so that’s on hold now.
Which brings me back to living in the moment. One reason I’ve become so bad at it is the fact that I truly hate this moment. So my mind constantly drifts to 2024 and what needs to happen between now and then, some things which are in my power to control but many other things where I am at the mercies of fate and chance. My choices seem to have been reduced to feeling annoyed and adrift by the here and now or nervous and anxious about the future, a Sophie’s choice for the ages.
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