A lot of things changed in 2020. Our friend groups got smaller. Our homes became our workplaces. We spent holidays at home—the same place we celebrated everything else. We forewent haircuts, dining in restaurants, and trips abroad. We were more mindful—paranoid, perhaps—about germs and crowds and how often we touched our faces. We kept up with loved ones through video chats. We became more distrustful of each other, frustrated with the people who didn’t believe the same things that we did. We turned inward.
For the most part, the past year sucked. It makes sense why so many of us are eager to return to a semblance of normalcy. We can’t wait to finally see our relatives, hug our friends, and travel to the places we’ve been daydreaming about for so long.
By April 15, nearly half of U.S. states will make the COVID-19 vaccine available to all adults. If your social media feeds are anything like mine, they’re starting to fill up with photos of happy masked faces—friends and acquaintances proudly displaying their proof of vaccination. The captions are part relief, part jubilation: The nightmare is almost over.
In some ways, it feels like the pandemic has already ended. Flight attendants are being called back to their jobs, spring breakers have packed Florida beaches, and indoor dining is returning to cities where it was once banned. It’s a glimpse of a not-so-distant future.
Billy and I are scheduled to get our vaccines in late April and, while I’m thrilled to join the protected masses, I’m also feeling apprehensive. I’m worried about the consequences of rushing back to pre-COVID life, of blindly returning to our old routines and comforts.
This feels like the type of admission that should be whispered. I’m supposed to be chomping at the bit to return to the Before Times, right? While I am excited about what’s ahead, I’m also anxious. I worry that we haven’t properly processed what we’ve been through.
There are so many lessons to glean from the past year. We’ve witnessed how crucial human contact is and how resilient we truly are. We’ve seen how adaptable—and accessible to everyone—our workplaces can be. We’ve learned what happens when scientists’ warnings are ignored. We’ve realized how interconnected we all are.
I worry this is all getting lost in the rush to get back to the way things were. Instead of sitting with the sadness of the past year and reflecting on the experience, we’re pushing it away—eager to move on to what’s next.
On March 31, 2020, writer Sonya Renee Taylor posted a video on Instagram about what will happen when the pandemic is over. “I know there’s comfort in the idea that this will all be done, and we’ll just get back to what we’re used to—to what’s comfortable, and what’s familiar, and in some ways, what is certainly easier than this,” she said.
Taylor took a pause, then continued. “What feels clear to me is that there is no going back.” The pandemic, she said, will require us to rethink our economic and political systems, relationships, and social engagements.
Taylor’s caption was a proclamation of promise:
We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was never normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate, and lack. We should not long to return, my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature.
I love what Taylor wrote. I love the vision she had, her approach of looking at life in lockdown as a chance to rethink our defective systems. But now, a year later, it feels like that opportunity is quickly and quietly slipping away.
One of the most unexpected surprises of grief is the nostalgia I’ve felt for early widowhood. I never, ever expected to miss the days of crying over Jamie, but—lo and behold—I have. I don’t miss the heart-aching sadness, but I have missed being so attuned to what I was feeling. I’ve missed the constant awareness of how fragile and precious life is. I even missed how life stood still for a moment.
I expect to feel similar nostalgia for pandemic life. I won’t miss the masks or not being able to hug friends, but I will miss the simplicity and comfort of day after day at home. I’ll miss the creativity required to keep in touch with loved ones, and the clarity of knowing which friendships mattered the most. I’ll miss the ease of not having to come up with an excuse if I don’t feel like going out, and the freedom of not having to wear shoes or a bra for most of the day. I’ll miss the early-pandemic hallmarks: the jigsaw puzzles, windowsill scallions, and virtual game nights.
For better or worse, life will become more and more familiar over the next few months. And while, for the most part, that’s something to celebrate, I sincerely hope we take this opportunity to consider what the pandemic taught us. What routines do we want to continue from this time? What habits do we want to let go of? In what ways did our world become more accessible? And what, from pre-COVID life, no longer serves us?
There are hundreds of thousands of Americans who didn’t survive the pandemic—not to count the millions more who died non-COVID-related deaths. None of them get the opportunity to reenter the world and approach it with fresh eyes. They don’t get the chance to learn from this experience. But we do.
We don’t have to go back to the way things were. We can go toward something better.
xoxo
KHG
p.s. What’s one thing from pandemic life that you don’t want to let go of? Maybe you discovered the joys of working in sweatpants, a passion for baking bread, or new ways to keep up with faraway friends. What do you want to continue doing—even after the pandemic ends? Reply to this email, leave a comment, or send me a message. I’ll round up the best replies soon.
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Katie Hawkins-Gaar @katiehawk
In November, I was hospitalized for postpartum psychosis. It’s taken me until now to write about the experience. #mysweetdumbbrain https://t.co/WCLBImfPHdI was so touched by the feedback from my last newsletter issue. Thank you to Tasneem and the many, many other people who shared my story and bravely offered up their own experiences with postpartum mood disorders.
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My Sweet Dumb Brain is written by Katie Hawkins-Gaar. It’s edited by Rebecca Coates, who is excited by the idea of normalcy, but wonders when she’ll stop having dreams about forgetting to social distance or wear a mask. Photos by Lukas Souza and BP Miller on Unsplash.
I don’t want to go back to a life with no creating.
I don’t want to go back to busy days and pressure to ‘be productive’.
I don’t want to go back to fewer naps or faster days.
I don’t want to go back to taking travel, theatre and live music for granted.
I don’t want to go back to jeans and heels or make up.
God this is so on point. It felt weird to read it just because it's exactly what I've been feeling and not telling anyone (only my therapist) because I feel no one would understand. I'm now married, but my previous partner of 8 years passed away in 2017 and I too have been longing for the grieving days. Exactly as you described it. I've been feeling very ashamed of it and not sharing it with anyone, not even my therapist. That's why these newsletters are so important. This feeling that we are not alone even when we feel like we are.
I'm sorry I can't help you financially, my husband and I live in a room in a flat share in London and I really can't be a paying subscriber right now, but as soon as I can I'll be one because these newsletters have been a company to my troubling soul.