Before you all think that I’ve lost my mind…please let me explain.
I have very bad days. Days filled with once again telling my daughter disappointments and things that have been cancelled yet again. I grow weary of hearing how my son is doing at college…and all the things he is missing out on. It totally stinks that we can’t visit my husbands eldest daughter In Philadelphia without being quarantined for fourteen days first. We wonder if we can have her visit for Christmas. What will the holidays be like! And the negative relastic side of me wants to say…it will be different. There won’t be a lot of traveling…and probably alcohol will be heavily involved.
I have enjoyed for the most part, the stores that have hand sanitizer readily available…and if you frequent a store that never seems to have it, even though they sell it…perhaps you should re-consider where you spend your money. If it starts with a “W” and ends with a “t”, please for all small businesses across the country…please stop immediately…they’ve thrived through this nightmare when no one else has.
I have enjoyed the colored dots on the floor that tell people where to stand in the checkout line…that I hope doesn’t go away. I can’t tell you how many times people didn’t know about personal space and were WAY TO CLOSE to me when I was checking out. So much so, that I wanted to ask if they wanted to pay for my purchase!
I do detest the arrows that tell me which way to go. I cannot tell you the times I’ve fantasized about ripping those up and throwing them up in the air like I just don’t care. I’m tired of limits on things…I can’t wait to just go buy Clorox wipes in a four pack…because I can…or canned goods (give me six…not four) I want six!!!
I’m tired of reading a book before I walk in a store…if there was something important I would miss it…because I just can’t read six signs every time I walk in a store…telling me to wear this, don’t do this…your child must be how old to enter with you…and by the way…we don’t do cash anymore…or we only accept cash…and make sure you follow the arrows! It’s no wonder we’ve all decided to curbside everything.
I wore a mask today to church….I sang with the mask on…these are things I never thought I would say in my lifetime. I still cry when I see little kids wearing masks…
I look at my 13 year old, and I finally realiZed something. Our kids are watching how we worship, how we shop…what we complain about and how we treat each other.
At church today, I sang and raised my hands like I always do. I’m grateful that we can still worship. I’m thankful that we can still be in church. We have our masks on because our mayor has a city wide mandate because he’s trying to get the numbers back down. That’s all…no more, no less.
Trips we wanted to take are cancelled…and crying about it isn’t gonna change it. We literally have the entire world in the same boat…so what are we going to do?
Covid has taught me many things about myself….but the most interesting parts are the parts I never saw coming.
My husband and I have very stressful lives…the only way we can relax….is camping and kayaking…and even fishing. A year ago, none of those things even halfway eXcited me.
We are going camping this weekend and then the following week. We are talking about more hiking and more adventures like that. We hope to go to more exciting places once the country opens up again.
I’ve even been working on some soap products to make camping life easier…who even saw that coming?
We all agree that 2020 is a complete disaster….but what great path did it take you down, that you never would have ventured down?
The one thing that we can say about 2020 is that it taught us all to be creative. Creative how we cooked. Creative in how we entertained ourselves. Creative in how we did business and how we adapted
I think we should feel pretty proud of ourselves on how quickly we figured things out…and how we are still figuring things out.
I to want good movies back…I would love to go on the trips that I had planned for this year. I miss traveling, and seeing new cultures. I miss my friends that live on the other side of the world that I was gonna see this spring…and now it may be another year. I miss my son going to college and sitting in classes. I miss my daughter going to swim for the swim team, art classes and field trips. I miss baseball games in person and concerts. I miss the movies (haven’t seen a good movie out yet to go sit with a mask on). I miss just being able to spare of the moment decide to go somewhere and it can be done. You can’t even go camping without making a camp reservations weeks in advance! These are the things I miss…but there are things I don’t want to forget.
I always want to be grateful for all those things that I never was grateful for. That I just always assumed would be there. I wasn’t grateful for Starbucks, because I always assumed it would be there. I wasn’t grateful for my job, because I always thought it would be there. Your never grateful until you realize how quickly it all can be gone.
If you ever have buried a spouse you know this. You always took for granted that that person would be there…because you never imagined they would be gone.
We never worried about toilet paper and flour. Chicken and eggs, oil, and butter…because these things were always ridiculously abundant….until they simply were not…and we all realized just how badly prepared we all were for this pandemic…but then things started working again…and got back on track…but I know that when you see ample supply of toilet paper at the store again (like I do) that you smile to yourself…and feel a little better that maybe just maybe it will be alright.
We will be normal again…we really will… I have quit answering when that will be…but one thing I can plan on…and that’s more time outside…more time for house projects…more time for landscaping that we never had time to do before…and more time for yoga…
What’s something good that Covid brought your way?
The Reluctant Red Nose 