What a strange year indeed, who would have thought, last year this time, that we would be in a National Lockdown? Not quite the apocalypse envisioned by TV and the movies but enough to change lives on a global scale none the less.
It's not so much the closed restaurants and hair salons, but the psychological impact of a forced isolation. Sure the first couple of weeks were tolerable, but human beings are social by nature. Even an introvert likes to be noticed every so often, and extroverts are climbing the walls or making Tik-Tok videos by now. It's at this point that we start to realize the things we took for granted. The get together we thought we'd skip, not wanting to visit grandma, all the hugs and physical contact we once enjoyed have become high risk activities. So how do we cope with this new paradigm?
Well, with all this extra time, some self introspection might be just what the doctor ordered, a little time to edit ourselves without distractions, to look inward at who we are and what really matters to us. If you still need interactions, now is the time to learn a new skill or hone your creative side. Maybe when this is over and we emerge like groundhogs from our dens, squinting at the blinding sunlight, we may all come out as better people, or at least we can learn to read Navajo or something.