Me On A Monday - March 15th

 Good Morning, I hope everyone is well.

Today I am reflecting on the last year, as last week was a time of  many one year pandemic & COVID anniversaries.  

What a year, is in no way a small statement.

Thank you all for being company over this last year. Thanks for sharing how you feel, thanks for book recommendations, thanks for inspiring with crafts & projects, thank you for sharing recipes - OMG to beer bread.  Thanks for not hoarding toilet paper.

This is a longer read than normal.  I understand if you skip but if you do read, thank you.  

What I reminisce about is my experience & not necessarily the experience, feelings or thoughts of other Canadians, other Ontarians or other villagers.  I know my emotions & thoughts over the last year  have been at times, an out of control rollercoaster ride.  While I did not purchase the ticket for this COVID ride, I have been strapped in like everyone else & sent around & around at neck breaking speed.   

When I look back at 2020's Daytimer & Gratitude Journal, I see COVID reference entries in early January, especially with reference to my own "great sickness" of which I wrote about, seemingly quite a bit.  The biggest notation changes came about early March & then a definite directional change on March 11th with The W.H.O. announced coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) aka COVID-19  as a world wide pandemic.  On Friday March 13th, Ontario went into the first lockdown & borders started to close & it was a full moon!  As I write this, the region I live in is in another lockdown, the third I believe, I've lost count, but unlikely to be the last.

Overnight, FaceBook, Twitter & Instagram had created experts in a new & developing virus/disease, while the medical & scientific sites were slower to come online.  Out of this, the battle cry went up as Facts Nor Fear.  F/B is now developing an ever growing number of vaccine experts.  At first I did succumb to the fear & anxiety, although eventually I sifted out what online sites I trust to give scientific & medical facts & only check in with those 3-4 times a week.  Too much endless information can lead to doom scrolling & anxiety.

Early in March every world leader, every political group had to decide how best to protect their people, their resources, their economy.  Oh the economy!  Some leaders have come out as heroes, some as villains.  Although, in my opinion, when it comes down to it, the responsibility clearly lay at our own individual feet. Some kicked the sound medical advice aside, some trampled over it.  Locally, I am surprised that the elected representatives have been fairly quiet & it's our county's Chief Medical Officer & assistant that have been most vocal. Probably a good thing.

Mr Man & I have been very observant of the rules & adhered to all lockdown rules.  We take these measures as serious & Mr Man often quotes something from Star Trek's Mr Spock "the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the one" ... we stay home, we don't gather, we mask up & of course we wash our hands often.  Curbside pick ups are the norm for us now.  In the last year there have been very few, count on one hand, the number of in person shopping we have done.  Even for Christmas shopping, it was online or do without.  

And speaking of masks, I recorded the day in March when Mr Man & I first started wearing a mask when going out of the house.  We have quite a wardrobe of masks now & wearing one of 3 layer cotton with filter, feels almost normal.  We also have a face shield to wear with the mask if we feel that extra layer of protection is required. Not once did we question if our civil liabilities were in jeopardy. We see this as civil responsibility. 

I still touch my face too much.

There are a few things I miss, such as freely wandering the library, attending in person church services, seeing friends for tea, giving & receiving hugs of hello & goodbye.  I missed the ability to celebrate one of my friend's wedding - there was no opportunity for the  wearing of a frothy dress while sipping & nibbling on a sunny patio.  We could not gather to comfort when we lost a family member to COVID-19.  At times it feels like a lot of sacrifice to life as we knew it.  As many of you know, we are not part of a close family, & it's almost normal for us to go long periods of not connecting but I know for many of you that has been one of the greatest hardships of this pandemic, not being able to see your family as often & I feel for you.

We have learnt many lessons about ourselves during this last year.  We found out just how much of a homebody we both are.  We give thanks that we live in a house, with large yard & that we have remained good friends with the companionship of two wonderful cats. Our individual hobbies, have been sanity life savers; me with crafting & him with astronomy.  We were both able to work from home; we learnt about Zoom for socializing, learning & working.  I  have been on an up & down journey about planning & preparing every meal we have eaten since March 2020.  Right now I'm excited trying new to us recipes.

Through Zoom travel, we learnt lots about the world we live in, locally & on the grand scale. We have seen how resourceful some businesses & some people are; we learnt how resilient some are & are continually surprised at who isn't. We have seen great generosity, compassion & caring, but we have seen a lot of selfishness.  We saw heroes rise from unlikely sources - I speak of many WWII seniors that rose brilliantly all over the world to inspire the younger generations.  They knew sacrifice.

We have shared in the shame of discovering how horribly many of our seniors were being treated in Long Term Care (LTC) facilities & how badly many were managed. When the virus swept through these homes, so many died. When reading the daily stats of those lost, I tried to remember that these numbers aren't just a graph, but lives.    People who are loved, active members of their families & communities, people who have given much, people who still had so much living to do.  I hope we learn there is a better way to caring for our aged.  On this front I hope there is no return to "normal".

We learnt which jobs were really necessary, which are usually the lowest paid jobs, such as our grocery store workers.  We learnt how fortunate & blessed we are to live in a country with mostly good & free healthcare; we learnt that we need to revaluate who we hold up as true heroes, who the real influencers are.  It is the nurses, doctors, first responders, PSWs, teachers, librarians .  It's them we need, not the manufactured celebrities.

We learnt a whole bunch of new words & expressions: pandemic, COVIDIOT, flattening the curve, Coronacoaster, the wild ride of life I spoke of earlier, IFR (infection fatality rate), lockdown, spike T-cells, PCR Testing (polymerase chain reaction), curbside pick up, PPE ... I could go on & on.

In my own memory keeping, I refer to this Global Pandemic as The Great Pause & wonder what we will take forward with us.  I am switching from "returning to normal"  to the phrase "returning to the familiar" .  But no matter what we call it, it's unlikely that any freeing of movement will take place until the majority of any & every population are vaccinated.  

So, until I can roll up my sleeve for a vaccine, (probably summer time),  I will continue to mask up, socially distance & go out only if necessary & give daily thanks for all my many blessings.

Let's all be an APOCALCOVIDOPTIMIST,  A person who feels hopeful about life after COVID-19