One year ago today school was cancelled, I was figuring out how/if to keep working with a 3rd grader at home, how to make sure she was still learning, and not disturb Mark who was sent home to work a few days before schools closed. I remember running “normal” errands (like getting my enhanced drivers license) just hoping I could get it done before things started shutting down for who knows how long.

It was the beginning of the crazy. I don’t think the last year would have felt so insane if it was just COVID we were dealing with. But, some pretty horrible things happened socially, racially, politically that just kept adding onto this feeling of What the actual F is going on?!

I remember tuning into every press conference from our Governor because it seemed like every time he spoke there were new orders for staying home, shutting down businesses, mask mandates, parks closing etc. And, as each announcement brought new levels of caution we would adjust our activities, and make sure we had what we needed to be home for an unknown length of time. Grocery shopping was wild for a few months…so many empty shelves, and worrying about running out of TP because there was none to be found. I was not expecting Costco to run out of dog food, but they did…I was worried for a bit what we would feed Ruthie, but thankfully we managed.

It is a lot to take in when you look back and remember everything that went down the last year from COVID, to protests, to innocent people murdered by police, to an attempted insurrection in the capital, and a zillion other things that happened but I’ve forgotten or blocked. It’s like stuff you see in movies, only now it’s real life.

COVID aside there is the fall-out from seeing what some friends and family really think about racial injustice, social issues, political issues etc. As hard as getting back to normal after COVID is going to be, it’s going to be even harder to come to terms with what those realizations mean to relationships that feel different now, or broken.

The good news is we are closer to the end of this than we were a year ago. Vaccines are rolling out and things are slowly opening back up. I wish it was easy to just return to “normal” life, but I think there are some strange times ahead navigating when it’s safe to visit friends and family, will it required masks still to be around loved ones, what do we do about being around those that will not get vaccinated, what will school look like in the Fall, when will we feel safe traveling/join sports/eat at a restaurant indoors/going to a concert/have a BBQ with all our friends…I don’t know. A new normal will emerge, some things will return to how they used to be, and others will forever be different.

What I do know is we will continue to make decisions that feel safe. Decisions not made out of fear, but love. Love for Sky and keeping her healthy, keeping at risk friends and family healthy, keeping ourselves healthy, and doing what we can to keep our community at large healthy.

It’s important to be thankful we are here a year later because there are over 500,000 of us who are not. Stay safe, stay healthy, and here’s to settling into a new sort of normal.