Some day you'll be able to eat this!

There’s an ad that comes on TV during the news (which I still watch to see my daughter the reporter), I can’t remember what the ad is for, and it goes like, “Some day you’ll be able to. . . “ in a sort of syrupy, Hallmark Channel woman’s voice. They then show all the things we can’t do: family gatherings with everyone beaming, public events with crowds, weddings, etc. etc. etc. The purpose of this seems to be to make us all feel better about what we are going through now. 

But to me, negative, antisocial me, it’s like sitting a person down at a banquet table and saying, “Some day you’ll be able to eat this”, not having any idea when that “some day” will come (months? Years?). We are also not supposed to complain about our lot, as others always have it far worse, and besides, people got through World War II and the Spanish flu pandemic, didn’t they? Not to mention the Great Plague of Europe. So. . . we must be chipper, upbeat, watch ads about all the things we can’t do, wonder when we WILL be able to do them, and realize (as I have come to realize) that this culture will never be the same. COVID will likely return cyclically like flu viruses, and keep mutating like flu viruses, so we will need to KEEP getting vaccinated and continue to dread it as it becomes more deadly and the viruses become immune to the vaccines. 

Meantime, the mutations seem to get more communicable all the time. Social isolation is already a pandemic and was a serious problem before all this, and will likely escalate and become a sort of new normal. Rebuilding thousands of sunken businesses will be long, laborious, and sometimes impossible. Online sales/service will become much more standard, so people will seldom need to leave the house. These are the things I see happening and which won’t go away. In some instances it’s an advantage: my son can work from home instead of commuting from Port Coquitlam to Vancouver every day. But I keep thinking extroverts must be going through hell now. And even more disturbing is what this is doing to kids: literally robbing them of some of the more fun and stimulating aspects of childhood. 

Christmas was cancelled last year, and we may well have to cancel it again this year – we can’t count on it, for sure. One year in the life of a young child is FOREVER (if you can remember back to what it was like waiting for Christmas), and they can never get that fun and joy back. And what about that SECOND crop of young adults who will be unable to attend their grad - because, for the second year in a row, grad has been cancelled, along with most of the other rites of passage that help to form their adult identity?

Fortunately, most people I know are introverts who don't crave the party scene, but we still feel the lack of ACTUAL contact, as in being in the same room with someone we love. Zoom calls will soon be seen as a standard substitute, and then, once in a blue moon, we’ll see an article about “mental health” which tells us all to take a walk outside, breathe deeply, and think about how great it will be when this is all over. (In truth, it is much more like holding our breath.) Or – even worse – we’ll be told to “reach out for help”, which was never there to begin with (sorry, we have no beds. Here’s a prescription. Now go home and behave yourself). There apparently are computerized therapists now who just repeat back the last thing you said with a question mark at the end of it. Or Siri will talk to us! She’s always good for a chat.