So what does the end of the pandemic look like?
Well, the day has finally come. Here in Australia and the USA, we’re starting to talk about the pandemic ending and life returning to normal.
For now, we hope mother nature’s beating is about to stop. The pimple on my forehead that broke out when this all began, too, is subsiding.
It’s nearly time to rest and lick our wounds. It is my sincere hope that there is not a third wave of this virus, although there is always a chance. Even if there is a third wave, we will endure. We will fight again.
So what does the end of the pandemic look like?
A Return to Normal Programming
Content as we know it has been changed. I have been exhausted by the news which has been a form of survival here in Australia. If you don’t watch the news then you risk understanding what precautions you need to take and knowing the areas that are in lockdown or having mini-outbreaks.
I miss the normal programming of uplifting stories, social media posts of hope, a bit of good old fashion humble-bragging, and endless amounts of tweets designed as backhanded humor.
Satire blog posts are another form of content I miss. Hearing someone describe a way of life that you think is real, only to find out at the end that the writer was joking, is awesome.
Normal programming is about to resume. You can go back to scrolling the internet for the fun of it, rather than for survival.
We Will Never Be the Same Again
I don’t think this is a bad thing. Ten years of endlessly rising stock markets and a little too much greed, hurt us. This pandemic has shown us, once again, what really matters: people.
We will probably never wash our hands the same way again or smile at our parents on the way out of their homes after a Sunday afternoon lunch the same way again. Your elderly relatives will play a bigger part in your life. Those stories of The Great Depression may actually be helpful for dealing with the fallout known so far as ‘the recession.’ (I wonder what they will name it? Hopefully not The Depression 2.0 — or the Corona Recession.)
I certainly am never going to write the same way again. Time in isolation has taught me just how much of a role writers play in the functioning of society. A lot of the time I wrote for myself, or in the early days, my ego. The pandemic has forced me to be focused 100% outward. Replying to an email from a reader has become like a nurse giving a patient a ventilator to breathe.
Maybe life after the corona is exactly what we needed.
We Are Going to Appreciate so Many Small Things
The small things like going to the movies or driving our car for absolutely no reason have temporarily disappeared from our lives. We never used to think much of these activities. Getting in an automobile is your right.
But once this pandemic is over, I predict people are going to be driving all over the planet without a destination in mind.
It will be nice to remember what the open highway looks like again and to sit on the beach for the hell of it and not be tapped on the shoulder by a police officer asking, “what are you doing here?”
Going to watch sport rather than watch it on TV is going to seem like the only way to enjoy a slam dunk or rejoice like a holy person at a touchdown.
The small things are going to become big things.
Coffee Is Going to Taste Better
This instant coffee I’ve been drinking has become tiresome. It hurts me to admit it, but I miss barista-made coffee with a stupid number of milk options that don’t come from a cow’s tit (udder).
That sweet taste of a latte on a hidden street full of other caffeine fiends quietly making their way to the local caffeine dealer is going to be sweet as. The coffee is going to be the right temperature. One change, though: after mother nature’s recent lesson as the result of a virus, I might not get my coffee in a takeaway cup. It might be time for a reusable cup to show her a small change in behavior and prey for an absent second wave.
I’m not quite sure how to quietly celebrate the end of this pandemic. Millions of people have been left unemployed and the after-effects are going to show up in day to day life for some time.
The entire wisdom of the pandemic is yet to be seen.
Each day we’re going to learn a few things from this whole saga. It’s not going to be easy. We’re going to have to support each other rather than pretend to for social media likes. There will be devastation. There may be truths that turn out to be lies. There may be a mini blame game.
It is my hope that when this pandemic has ended, we like each other just a tiny bit more. With slightly less hate, we may discover, again, that unity is the message from this pandemic, not hate which separates us from the solution.
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