A Brand New Old New Year
Ah, it’s déjà vu all over again is what you’re thinking. Same old politics, same old global warming warnings, same old faux news, same old Covid with a new name. You can hardly stand to turn on the news anymore, same as me. Another report on the plague statistics, a plea to vaccinate or wear masks, another record warm/cold/wet/wild weather phenomenon, airline cancellations, partisan politics, the feeling that you heard this yesterday, same stories, you heard it the day before and the day before that. You have a hard time remembering if this Covid pandemic started last year or the year before that. You no longer care what day of the week it is. Or month. Or …
It was two years ago. I know, it took me awhile too. Two years compressed into one long one, a stay-at-home, quarantine time. Zoom meetings, online shopping, canceled parties, mask mandates, anti-mask mandates. Oh right, there was an election in there somewhere, then an attack on the Capitol, a Stop the Steal, a Congressional investigation into the January 6th insurrection, wasn’t there an impeachment trial too? It’s all lost in a fog. Loss of taste, loss of smell, loss of memory, all symptoms, all long haul conditions. If you believe in the pandemic at all …. And a good unvaccinated percentage of us don’t.
But here it is, another year, a not so fresh start, time for resolutions, eh? Why bother, is what you’re thinking, same as me. Nothing’s changing, nothing is going to make this one different than the last one or the one before that, nothing is the best you can hope for. So ring in the New Year if you want. We canceled the party we’d had for the past three decades, we canceled the bonfire we thought we might have with a few other survivors, we may cancel 2022. We plan to just hunker down and celebrate in the same way we’ve celebrated the past 700 or so days of the lost years. Happy New Year, everybody! Make a toast! Hope for the best! Maybe next year will be different. But don’t bet the farm on it.
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Tags: Auld Lang Syne, Covid in the Rearview Covid Up Ahead, The Year Time Stood Still