Contemplating the end (of the pandemic)

 

   There is perhaps more than a glimmer of hope, a light at the end of the tunnel.  COVID-19 cases are down, as are hospitalizations and, thankfully, deaths, at least overall and relatively speaking.  More and more people are getting vaccinated, although the roll-out has been bumpy in several ways, and there’s literally a race to stay ahead of the variants that are popping up.  (I got my second Pfiser shot last week!) Although it may be too early to say so, the pandemic, which is just about a year old, may be finally coming to an end.  One can practically hear a huge, general sigh of relief. 

   But I have to say that my sigh of relief is somewhat stifled.  Yes, I’m happy that this lock-down and isolation, this worry that anyone may bring me sickness and death, is coming to a close, but I also have anxiety about it.  I have lots of anxiety about the pandemic ending, about what will happen when it is over.  Sometimes, in fact, a part of me doesn’t want the pandemic to end. 

   A very small part of me, mind you.  Like I said, I do want COVID to end.  It’s not that I wish that it would go on.  But I do worry about what will happen when the pandemic is over and things can return to normal, the way things were. 

  There are three reasons why I’m anxious about the pandemic ending.

   The first reason is that I’m not so sure that we want to return to “normal,” to the way things were.  There are valuable things that have been learned during this time, and I hope we don’t forget them, leave them behind. I hope we don’t go back to our go-go-go, energy-draining normality.  I hope we remember the value of having some quiet time, some down time, and some time alone and just with our loved ones.  I hope some of us continue to work from home and even have some online gatherings, resulting in less traffic and pollution.

   My second concern about the pandemic ending doesn’t really have anything to do with the pandemic but feels very connected to it, part of what’s generally referred to as the trauma of the past year, and is widely viewed as being amplified and encouraged by pandemic or, rather, the lock-down and ensuing attention and restlessness.  I’m talking about the protests after the brutal police murder of George Floyd and the invigorating of the Black Lives Matter movement, and my concern is that this will fade away, and we’ll go back to brutal racism and injustice being business as usual, just another thing we hear or don’t hear about on the news.  I hope that, again, we don’t return to normal, the way things were, when police killings of Black people and other blatant racial wrongdoings are business as usual.  I really hope that the fact that many White people took part in the protests, after having been pretty much a captive audience to Floyd’s killing while stuck at home and despite the risk of getting (and spreading) COVID, and that the protests were peaceful for the most part and weren’t just another riot, per se, contributes to this being so. I would hate to see all the angst of last summer be for naught. 

   Finally – and this is the hardest and took me a long time to realize and understand – I worry that when the pandemic is over, when things go back to normal, back to the way things were, I will be left behind. During the pandemic, with everyone having to stay at or close to home for the most part, I’ve had the sense that everyone has been in the same boat that I now find myself in since my spinal surgery four years ago now.  This has been a comfort to me.  I love going to plays, movies and concerts, and I hate it that we haven’t been able to do these things, but it is now hard to get out and do these things, although I was, and, to be perfectly frank, it has been much easier, it has been nice not to go out.  It has been nice to watch movies on my television or plays online or even on Zoom – and all the more so when I’m lying in bed! Yes, I’ve gotten lazy, and I’ve liked it that it’s been okay for me to be lazy.  I’m anxious that the time is coming when it won’t be okay for me to be lazy, when things will go back to as they were, and I will want to, will be compelled to, be driven to, get out and go to movies, concerts and plays like everyone else, as hard as it now is for me.