We are over one year into the pandemic. As of today, 545k deaths in the US. Somehow we are 20% of COVID deaths globally even though we are about 4% of the world population. It’s devastating. To those who have lost loved ones, especially my friends and co-workers – your loss is not a number to me and I’m so very sorry. And yes, this includes those who did not die directly of COVID but of mental health and addiction challenges escalated by our collective situation. There hasn’t been a day since losing my friend Tristan where he hasn’t crossed my mind. I miss him dearly and should have called more while he was here (PSA: call your people, folks).
My “breaks” have been running outside in my neighborhood (yah for garden season and new views!) and meeting with the girls outside now that the weather is warming up. Our conversations, when we are not joking around, center around the return to “normal” – who has been vaccinated amongst parents / grandparents, wanting to change what “normal” means (do we all really need to be in our offices five days a week?), the timeline where returning to “normal” is acceptable, the desires to rush that timeline, or frankly, for some introverts, the anxiety the timeline is causing…
If you’ve been a responsible adult in this pandemic – thank you. Someone is alive because of the sacrifice you made. Always know that.
So what are we going to do?
My parents and in-laws are vaccinated (the relief that comes from this is unexplainable!). Dave qualifies and is actively looking for an appointment. VERY important to any personal decisions we are making, all of the teachers at my kid’s school who wanted to be vaccinated have been.
Our lockdown was serious because our kids are in school and for us, the health of their teachers was more important than any risk we could take. We didn’t do Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or spring break, or anything really. And the fact we had bars open and schools closed really disgusts me… I digressed…
The people we care about and interact with are all safe. Soon, I’ll be the last one not vaccinated in our “group.” I’ve made it this far and have zero intentions of getting COVID (…although we are not entirely sure I didn’t get it in early March before testing was widely available). We will be social distancing. We will be masking. But we will start to take some calculated risks.
For example – we miss sports. The Wild are opening up the arena to 3k season ticket holders/game for the rest of the season starting in April – we’ve secured three games and are excited to return to the arena. With the Twins playing outside with limited seating – that’s on our list as well.
We are not going to due a ton of travel until herd immunity starts to be realized and COVID variants are understood – but we will do some. We plan to spend time at the lakes with our parents, a very welcomed change from last summer. We miss our parents and it’s time we spend longer stretches with both sides.
So that’s it. One more step towards a “return to normal” — Sports. Lakes. Parents. It causes equal amounts anxiety and excitement.
Note: If you here for the garden content, Dave said I could get fruit trees. He only said it once, but I heard it, so… no backsies.
Note: I’m going to stop posting my gardening vlogs on Facebook. Easiest way to follow along would be to follow my blog on WordPress, or better yet, my channel on YouTube.
Up North Urbanite 