I’m not sure I want the year of quarantine to end. For 16 months, I’ve felt almost normal. No FOMO or kicking myself for not “participating.” The bars and conferences and receptions and art festivals were dark. No pressure to act like a regular person and just go to the damn thing and wear a smile and desperately try to understand what everyone else is enjoying. No energy spent on creative excuse design. No wondering what planet I’m from.
Instead, I was like an elder stateswoman at home in her element. A lifetime of experience made me a pro at staying home, hanging out with a small number of loved ones and the animals. For the first time I can remember, I felt the satisfaction of being in the mainstream, doing what everyone else was doing.
Good riddance to the illness and premature deaths! Well-deserved rest to the front line responders! Goodbye to the stifling masks and smelly hand sanitizer! But can we all just be a little homier now? Can I stay near the edge of the mainstream instead of eddying back out to the weirdo fringe?
Ah well, probably not. Back to the edges I go. But at least I learned something valuable — I didn’t miss the bars or conferences or receptions or art festivals one bit. I can throw FOMO out with my used masks. To each their own and I’m just a bit clearer on what my own is.
On Elk Meadow Road 