When this is all over…

Remember around this time last year when most of us were trapped in our own homes by the coronavirus? We were “sheltering in place” and “flattening the curve” and forming our “quaranteams” of 10 people or less to ride out the pandemic.

One of the phrases that kept popping up around that time was “when all this is over.” Yes, it was usually followed up by the declaration of how we might celebrate our freedom from COVID-19… “When all this is over, I’m going to go out dancing every night.” Or, “When all this is over, we’re going on a long road trip.” Or “When all this is over, we need to spend the weekend with Grandma and Grandpa.”

For a while, it looked like “when this is over” might never come. We missed out on big family events like the 4th of July and Thanksgiving and Christmas (or at least, most of us did — or had some truncated form of sociallydistant celebration). But the idea was there. Someday, this really would be over and we could get back to normal.

Unfortunately, I’m afraid the world changed while we were inside, and not for the better. Now “this” isn’t just COVID-19. Nope, now it’s social unrest, political nightmares, class warfare, and oh yeah, a big chunk of the public refuses to get vaccinated — the very thing that was supposed to be our salvation from the coronavirus.

I hate to be the one to break it to you folks, but “this” is never going to be over. Our society is so fractured right now, it will take a generation to put it back together.

Maybe then we’ll find that “new normal” that we’ve heard so much about.

And hopefully it will be better than the “current normal” we’re stuck in now.