When the world broke apart, it came back in pieces. Fragments of the life I had lived before. And that is what it would be now and forever. Life before the pandemic. Life before the unrest. Life before the turmoil.
It is hard to remember a time before this, but I know that everything feels more fragile now. That the things we love the most must be held gently with two hands, because they can be easily fractured or taken away.
I try not to dwell in what the new or the next normal will be, because for all the knowing voices we really have no idea. That’s the thing about a once and one hundred year pandemic, it takes away the facade of knowing. The security of believing we ever really know.
But still I like to imagine a life after this. I like to think what it will be like to stand in a crowded room with strangers-bodies pulsating with energy. The foriegn being joined by the connection of a shared experience.
I like to think about walking down the street and having our faces unobfuscated by cloth and sharing a smile with a stranger. I think I miss this small act the most. The transference of energy and the feeling that maybe you made someone’s day a little better and knowing the difference it made in you.
I like to think about sitting at a bar or a cafe and sharing words with a fellow wanderer. The understanding that we are all searching for something even if we don’t know what it is. And how sometimes it is easier to share that reality with someone you have just met than those you already know.
I like to think about how it won’t always feel this hard. That sometime in the future the predictability and normalcy of life won’t bore us but steady us. Piece by piece we will put it all back together. It won’t be the same. It never can be. But maybe our sight will be sharpened, and we will have more appreciation for the small moments that live in between the big. And then maybe the fractures become the building blocks for which we build a new foundation.