Your Pre-2020 Self Is Gone Forever
And that’s not necessarily a bad thing
On a recent Sunday afternoon, while typing emails on an unheated outdoor patio as the temperature descended from “nippy” to “fucking cold,” it occurred to me that there’s no bouncing back from a year like this. The pandemic will end, but our pre-2020 selves are gone forever. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
You’d be forgiven for reading this and thinking, “well yes, duh.” As soon as our worlds shrunk down to household units and pandemic pods, we began planning for who we’d become after this: the priorities we’d re-prioritize, the goals we’d chase down, the dances we’d dance like no one was watching. Having a year of your life rewritten by the specter of human mortality will do that.
But we’re still in the thick of it, and it’s likely we’ve all changed in ways we may not have even noticed. The precise nature of that change likely varies from person to person; no two people have experienced the pandemic in exactly the same way. One experience we do all have in common is that we’ve had to adjust to a “new normal.” Frankly, we’ve adjusted to several of them: shutdowns and reopenings and mask mandates, virtual schooling, and work-from-home and outdoor hangouts. The list goes on, and we’ve adapted in kind. With every shift in expectations and behavior, we’ve each…
