Somehow, since the last time I wrote an entry in this series, the pandemic has kind of begun to rear its ugly head again. As expected, its place in common conversation has vastly diminished, even as there are efforts to bring back things like mask mandates. Hey! I've literally been walking around every day with a mask in my back pocket since the original mandates were lifted last year. It remains common for those who are infected to put masks back on at least for a little while, and I still have one coworker who never stopped wearing hers at all.
COVID still makes its periodic rounds. Infections happen, and they ripple along, and there's still the newer urge to hide them as best as possible, and it's becoming ordinary to not even know if you do have it, since testing has greatly diminished as a response. It does seem, if anything, this latest round is marked by a relatively brief lifespan, if that makes it seem any better.
This year I've gotten to spend time with my niece, the Burrito, and family, not once but twice, the first (and second!) time since the pandemic began, and neither time came with any infection entanglements (I was a tad under the weather the first one, but even that posed no difficulties). The first was a trip to see them and the second my second-ever trip to DisneyWorld, and second trip to Hollywood Studios, which given the five year gap between visits gave the park ample opportunity to settle nicely into its Star Wars environment (there are other features, including the classic Tower of Terror, which I rode before they arrived, and is officially the only drop ride I will probably ever enjoy). I snapped about a million pictures of the Millennium Falcon alone. I cannot believe this thing exists in the real world (but flies in reality about as well as it did just before the events of The Force Awakens, although the flight simulator is somehow even better than Star Tours, which of course I enjoyed again). It seemed like there were ordinary levels of park attendance.
It's been a month since the second visit, and I can't believe it's already happened, much less that both visits happened, within a span of months. I'm beyond grateful. I opted to pause an opportunity that came up last year, even though I visited my other sister, my first post-pandemic adventure, so to have gotten both scheduled and to have already occurred is a huge relief and a significant step back forward. I never want to take for granted having experienced so much of this relatively unscathed, since many, many people can't say the same, but I felt a considerable resentment about how it played out, initially, how it disrupted things, and while it's only been a few years, just back in March I was still disgruntled over it, and now I've had a few experiences that for really only a brief moment were impossible. Sometimes you have to let a little perspective sink in. Forget everything else. The important things, as long as you hold onto them, aren't so easy to shake loose.
For three years I've wondered when these little entries were going to stop, and I guess now they're a part of my story. Originally I would try to include my writing journey, since this is a writing blog, and yet, now, I've begun to integrate this time into the regular workings of my life. It's not quite background yet. But it's getting there.
No comments:
Post a Comment