We hail on recollection, memory guiding thought, thought guiding choice. When we look back at how we’ve learned to live, my mind struggles to accept that we are entering a new mode of life. The tensions between my expectations of the old while welcoming the new is causing a friction and dissonance in my life.

In some ways, we are rebuilding, in other ways we are revolting, but in many ways we are evolving.

The isolation of COVID is heavy. It is a silence that somehow echoes in a chamber of solitude. Many of us feel so alone. We haven’t seen our loved ones in over a year. We haven’t been able to exchange hugs and acts of affection to our friends and those we hold dear. Many are grieving alone. Raising children alone. Growing up without the familiar company of friends. Everything that makes us so innately human has been stripped away from us. The many ways in which we express our humanity have halted.

We are living through a normalized period of trauma and heartbreak.

Speaking for myself, I feel incredibly isolated and when I am able to safely see friends or family, it feels like an awkward social muscle I don’t know how to use. My social stamina is extremely low. After seeing people I could spend hours with, I often have to spend an equal amount of hours if not more by myself to recuperate.

I am writing this to say we have to keep going. No matter how hard it is, we have to because the only way out of it is through. We ought to have some sort of belief in the resiliency of the human spirit that despite the worst that has come to us, the best is yet to come. The better days are near. We just have to get through the hard parts of these ones.

Although I don’t know if I’ll still be as awkward of a hugger (or even worse, god forbid), I look forward to the day we can gather, celebrate, feast, hug, and be together.

We are rebuilding. We are revolting. We are evolving.

We are better people because of it, we will be better people for it.