How much fun would it be? For one day, let’s promise not to discuss the C-word. Let’s take that break tomorrow. Let’s avoid talking about things over which we have no control… no, not that C-word. Let’s avoid chatting about the latest, ever-changing updates and worries regarding COVID-19. After 18-months, we could all use, and certainly need, a day off from COVID conversation. A day where we chat only about things under our control, things we enjoy yapping about, doing, watching, reading, seeing, and/or being around. We can check back on COVID stats the next day, if need be. Vaccinated, masked, distancing, avoiding static crowd settings, and washing our hands frequently- that’s our job and we can control that. But debilitating daily COVID discussions replaying like a non-fiction “Groundhog Day” run amok? Let’s choose to pass on that from time to time. Even for one day. We can make this effort like the staring game- see who blinks first.
While we’re not yet able to celebrate our past normalcy and get back to familiar, pre-2020 patterns and relationships, let’s allow ourselves the freedom to not get bogged down in today’s delta-inflated, local COVID numbers, or who’s vaccinated and who’s not, or whether we should travel, or where, or when boosters will be allowed and to whom. Let’s wax philosophical about “Ted Lasso” and the new Doobie Brothers CD. Let’s regale ourselves in the vapidity of Emmy red carpet couture and memes du jour. Let’s party in our safe bubbles like its 1999, ratchet up the volume dial on our Prince music and dance the night away, with nary a C-word mentioned in our homes, texts, at work, or in the stores.
I’m not naïve; I do realize that COVID is a formidable, unrelenting foe, the elephant in every room everywhere we go. But perhaps we can (occasionally) mute this over-sized, unwelcome fixture of 2020/21. No lamenting COVID and its on-going toll for one conversation, one meal with (safe) loved ones, one day of anything but…
It won’t make the situation disappear, but after 18-months of daily reminders, news stories, overdone vaccination video (we’ve got it, we know what that scenario looks like) and weekly/weakly medical recalibrations, it’ll sure make this ever-present nightmare a bit more palatable as we await the new reality when COVID ceases to be a daily, annoying preoccupation, and morphs into a pesky side show.
Think about it…