Covid-19: The Kiss of Isolation (not as bad, right?)
This pandemic has been a cruel, harsh winter that’s lasted for over a year now, but it’s just now starting to seem like flowers may begin to bloom. This isn’t to say that we’re out of the woods yet, though. This year-long winter still has its frozen roots buried in us, and its sharp winds will never be forgotten. However, with more vaccinations occurring and society slowly reopening, it’s a fair time to begin to reflect on how we’ve viewed the pandemic as a society.
I’ve come to the conclusion that society’s approach to these grueling times has been like flipping a coin, except we’ve had no trouble assuming it’d always land heads up. Many of us have been willing to make this gamble with confidence built up greater than our egos. In other words, it’s no doubt been exhausting watching so many people be careless, as they’ve failed to see how just because the coin has landed heads up for them, it doesn’t mean that it hasn’t landed tails up for others.
But at this point, I’ve beaten a dead horse until it’s become dust.
So, while we can wade in our pool of bitterness, we can have fun splashing around too. Even as I’ve resentfully logged my thoughts on Covid-19 for weeks now, in all my frustration, I’ve still tried to see light through this grey winter. Maybe it’s never truly appropriate to make jokes out of a serious situation, but we’ve got to survive somehow, right? For some of us, making a joke out of life’s heaviest times has been a survival skill.
And no, making dumb jokes won’t lead us out of the pandemic, but it may allow us to see something within Covid-19’s dreary shadow.
So let’s laugh about the way the days have become so bland that we’ve finally done the household chores we’ve been tossing aside for far too long. (My closet’s finally clean after 19 years!)
Let’s laugh about how every time we’ve claimed that we’ve “just never had the time to try it” has proven to be a lie. (It’s okay to be lazy!)
Let’s laugh about how we’ve made a habit of wearing the same T-shirt 3 days in a row. (But maybe hop in the shower.)
There’s a silver lining to everything, right? For most of us during the pandemic, we’ve found more time to improve ourselves in one way or another, however minuscule that improvement may be. This doesn’t mean a garden has had to bloom, maybe just a single flower has budded — take it from a natural pessimist.
You see, humans have always had a way of creating art out of chaos, and now couldn’t be a better time to do so. So, let’s repaint our struggles. But let’s not simply paint over it, but instead paint something new and beautiful out of it.
