a year in pandemic-land

Hello! I am alive, and my brain is very, very full. I am not feeling eloquent, but I should write things so I don’t completely forget how to human.

We’ve been mostly at home for a full year.

I ate inside a restaurant for the first time last week, with a friend I hadn’t seen since 2019. It was so good to sit in a public space and chat over food and drinks. The menu was overwhelming. I could have had anything! A sandwich! A panini! Soup!

I ordered…pizza. The thing we’ve had for takeout every other week since the pandemic started.

You see? I have forgotten how to human. Remember travel? Remember unmasked faces? That’s OK, I don’t, either.

I’m studying for a role change at work, which means I wake up thinking about algorithms and Redux. I look at games online and wonder how they’re coded. Then I close my laptop and pick up my paintbrushes.

I’m still experimenting, scratching that creative itch every day. It feels so good to doodle again, to feel that creative energy and the satisfaction of making things. I, a 38-year-old woman, have to resist the urge to show everyone in the house my latest paintings. “See? See what I made?? Look!!” I stop short of hanging my art on the fridge.

Thankfully that’s what Instagram and this blog is for.

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Meanwhile, life is creeping toward normalcy. My mom got her first dose of the COVID vaccine this month, and the Maine government suggests Tim and I will be eligible in June. The weather is getting warmer (albeit slowly). We’ve entered the last trimester of school, and will probably send the kids back to in-person schooling in the fall. Tim is interviewing for remote work positions. The eldest is tentatively scheduled to go to camp this summer, and we’re hopeful they’ll open the Canadian border so we can visit the Maritime provinces and have some semblance of a vacation this year.

Things are looking up!