WHILE LOOKING FOR A NEW NORMAL - PART ONE

  Random Post-Panic Pandemic Reflections

#1

Getting Ready to Climb Back Out of the Darkness

I wrote this post on January 14, 2021 and I am posting it on January 21, 2021. This pandemic really began for me on March 14, 2020 - the day I decided not to make my 13th trip to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Thank God I had the foresight to cancel! Sixteen people called to celebrate my decision. What a difference ten long months make! We have gone through a somewhat naive hope that it would only be temporary to a persistent state of despondency and now back up to a renewed sense of hope that the worst may be behind us. I documented that scary pilgrimage in a series of blogposts that I turned into a little book called "While Keeping My Distance: Random Reflections During a Pandemic." 

"It ain't over till it's over!" Without denying the truth of that statement, with a new President inaugurated yesterday, with my first vaccination coming in only four days, I am hopeful enough to start my second book of pandemic related reflections. I will call this series of reflections "While Looking for a New Normal: Random Post-Panic Pandemic Reflections." In this book, I will be talking myself into re-entering the world outside the confines of my condominium hide-out. I know that our new President has a heap of problems to address, the vaccination is no magic bullet, and I will have to observe many of the recent restrictions, but I am itching to get ready for the sunshine of a new spring. I am hopeful enough to write the first of, what I hope to be, several post-panic pandemic reflections. 

It has been a wearisome ten months on so many fronts, but let me admit up front that it probably has not been as hard on me as it has been on many, many others. After all, I am an introvert my nature. I live alone in a comfortable condominium with plenty to eat, cable TV, internet service and the knowledge that I had health care if I needed it. Being single, I could quarantine easily and had the freedom to stay safer than many others could. I am able to entertain myself for days on end without much trouble at all. Often being in a crowd is harder for me. There have been days, sometimes several of them in a row, that I have not left my condo except to go to my mailbox or take out the garbage. I was still able to get a lot done. 

I did miss traveling, but even that was not that hard to give up. I was beginning to hate airports and airplanes anyway. I have stood before enough priests and bishops in ten countries in the last few years than is psychologically healthy for most human beings. I didn't have to make the painful. decision to stop those speaking trips. The pandemic made the decision for me. I did miss hanging out in coffee shops with other retirees and having lunch with friends without having to sit outside in a howling wind with a cloth over my face. I did miss going into groceries and department stores once in a while, but I learned during this pandemic that you can order almost anything online, including your groceries, and have it all delivered to your door - often with free delivery! Throughout this drama, as I heard about serious hardships, I tried to remember that all I had were "aggravations," while others had real "problems," so I tried not to complain. 

I did preside at several funerals, some being family members, during the last ten months, but I did not contract COVID and only one of those who had died had contracted it and he had multiple health issues. Some died of cancer, but most of old age. The saddest thing about the whole situation was that none of them could have a "full" funeral. Some funerals had to be live-streamed. Most had to forego a wake. Some were just small socially-distanced gatherings in the cemetery. Some were totally private. Some promised a "memorial service at a later date." I like doing funerals more than weddings so I look forward to again giving people the funerals they deserve. 

Close to a half million people in the United States have died since the beginning of this pandemic. It is not lost on me that I myself have been more than extremely lucky to have escaped getting sick and dying. If only I could be that lucky with lottery tickets! I guess that's OK since I couldn't have taken it with me anyway if I had died! I have learned to appreciate the old saying, "If you have your health, you have it all!" I have been pretty good at watching my weight and being faithful to my treadmill, but I do look forward to getting outside and walking in fresh air and sunshine!  

Here I stand in the rubble of disease, death, political unrest, race riots, an impeachment and extended isolation looking at a new year, a new administration and a new vaccine. I am beginning to remember what hope feels like. I am more than ready to walk out of the darkness and into the light, sticking one toe at a time into the water before I leap. Follow me in the weeks ahead, if you like, as we search for our new normal!