Out There Again
I went out into the wide world and met a friend for lunch. Armed with my mask, socially distancing, hand sanitizer, and a fully efficacious vaccination. Guess what? It felt good. It felt close to normal. Maybe not completely normal, but closer than I’ve been in a good long while.
I wondered if I could adjust. Would I be nervous? Would I start to enter the restaurant, then bolt? Scenarios raced though my head of how long it would take me to relax. What kind of anxiety I would experience when eating food made by someone outside of my household? (I’ve been very conservative since March 2020.)
It transpired like clockwork. Like I’ve been eating out and talking with friends my whole life. Because, guess what? I have. COVID precautions never became the new normal, despite what we said. It was the new abnormal that lasted a really long time.
Facts
There was a little prep work, definitely. I brushed up on the facts.
In my county, at the worst of the pandemic, the cases of COVID per 100,000 people were in the hundreds. I live in a crowded place. When there were that many cases, there could be almost a thousand people having cases somewhere nearby. And those are just the tested people. What about those asymptomatic folks?
Now my county has 5.7 cases per 100,000. I was eating lunch in the next county, which has 5.0 cases/100,000. My lunch buddy came from a third county that had 6.0 cases/100,000. I know this sounds like torture to those of you who grew up hating math, but it’s how I cope.
With less than a half a million people in the area where the restaurant was located, it meant less than 25 people with COVID existed in a 10-mile radius. Those were odds I could live with. Literally live with.
Priorities
My vaccine shot reached full protection— well, 95% protection — about the middle of March. At that point, I had some decisions to make. So did my husband. We wanted to limit our (and other’s) exposure at least somewhat.
He’s the practical sort. He got a haircut. He signed up for overdue dentist and eye doctor appointments.
I contacted friends. I needed human interaction with friends, not doctors. I’ll get there. I probably need a haircut too, but for me, socializing took precedence.
Signs
All around, I saw signs of Spring. Signs that the pandemic was ending. Our local fruit stand is even opening this weekend.
Another sign? It didn’t feel dangerous out there. I wasn’t panicked about washing my hands, though I did several times. I touched my face more than I should have, but I had my handy, dandy portable hand sanitizer with me. (Kudos to my sister, Kathleen, who gave me five tiny bottles, all different scents.) For some reason… the air, the store, the restaurant, felt cleaner. I only know that in my bones, I didn’t feel like racing home and locking the door. I felt like taking deep breaths and using the public restroom… not at the same time of course.
End is Near
All in all, it was inspiring to see smiling faces—or at least eyes. Inspiring enough to write about, something I haven’t felt like doing in a while. (Don’t even check the date on my last blog post.)
Someday, a few years from now, kids will ask us what it was like to live through the pandemic. How did we stay in our houses for so long? What did we do? Netflix probably won’t be around then, so we’ll have to explain that.
But mostly, we will probably tell them what a relief it was to have it end. What a joy it was to have someone bring food to our table. We’ll tell them how we got two shots to make it happen. Shot number #1 for hope a better day was coming. Shot #2 for relief that we could live again. The stressor isn’t going back out there. It’s living abnormally for so long.
Seeing others, eating out, and resuming our lives is how we make memories. It’s something we naturally, not something we forget even if we haven’t done it in a while. It’s like riding a bike.
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