So 2020 has departed none too soon and here we are in the first quarter of 2021. Doesn’t feel much different really. We watch as the politicians at home and abroad feud with medical experts while trying to find the right balance between our physical/mental health and our financial wellbeing. The social scientists and economists are licking their lips as they look forward mining the treasure trove of new data based on experiments that under normal circumstances would be deemed completely unthinkable and unethical (enforced isolation at home, curfews, travel bans, obligatory homeschooling and more). Meanwhile, we, the human guinea pigs, look on haplessly, waiting to be herded in this direction or that like sheep (sorry – just couldn’t resist the double animal comparison). Somewhere in the future a scientist (or several) will be awarded a Nobel Prize for creating the mRNA type of vaccine. Thank you, whoever you are!

But here we are, sinking into the hard realities of 2021, counting the days until the weather gets better and enough people get vaccinated for it to be safe to venture out again. It’s been a l-o-n-g year of living through the pandemic. With all this time to reflect about the current realities, you now have a whole new collection of unwished-for life experiences:

• You’ve stood in line in frigid temperatures outside the store for 10 minutes, only to find you left your mask in the car – or worse still, at home;
• Nothing annoys you more than watered down hand sanitizer at the entrances of stores. Having the sanitizer squirt drip onto your shoes does no one any good. And you thought salt was hard to get out of leather. …
• You have no idea who stuck the directional arrows on the floor inside the store to guide the shoppers through the various aisles in an orderly one-way direction, but you know that somewhere an unfortunate retail associate is cowering in a corner and still trying to figure out how to exit – BECAUSE THERE IS NO WAY OUT OF THIS DAMN STORE!! You have newfound respect for IKEA, which has been marking its convoluted escape routes for years;
• It irritates you immensely when someone walks down a store aisle headed in “the wrong direction.” Except, of course, for when it is you!

• If you hear the expressions “out of an abundance of caution,” “unprecedented times” or “bending the curve” one more time, you are going to completely lose it! And whatever happened to just “flattening” the curve? Oh, yeah – that was 2020;
• You’ve decided this is the perfect time to get that overdue dental work done. You aren’t going out anywhere anyway – and when you do, the bottom half of your face is completely covered. The options are endless – whitening (but why now?), crowns, veneers, adult braces. You even have the necessary funds sitting unused in your travel account, so no need to remortgage the house to get the perfect smile you always wanted.
• You’ve discovered that wearing a mask may not be so bad after all, since it helps keep your face warm in the midst of winter. Except when you eventually realize that you put a “used” mask on inside out –  yuck!!
• On the subject of masks, why is the person cooking your takeout burger wearing his/her mask under their nose? And you’ve realized that even after the pandemic is under control, you’ll always want food preparers to cover their mouths and noses. Why didn’t we think of this sooner?
• The pandemic has invaded your dreams. Suddenly travelling south to a sun destination while not wearing a mask has become the stuff of nightmares. Or else a hopeful fantasy for the future;
• And while on the topic of travel, how DARE those politicians and business leaders circumvent travel restrictions while the rest of us sit at home, quietly losing our minds during the long, cold and dark Canadian winter (or a deep freeze in Texas)? Fire them all!
• You’ve never ever been so excited to get a needle and can’t wait to have your turn. Nor have you ever before debated the merits of one vaccine over another, let alone been able to name the companies and countries that are manufacturing them;

• It seems the politicians have fully embraced the rainbow flag – but for new purposes. What colour is our region today? And what exactly does the lilac/magenta category MEAN?? Are schools open and stores closed or vice versa?
• You haven’t paid for anything with cash or gotten change in months. Now you don’t have any coins to pay for parking, do laundry, buy a chocolate bar from a vending machine, get a coin-released shopping cart or give to the homeless;
• You’re missing odours you took for granted (and didn’t necessarily much like) during the “old normal” – overpriced popcorn at the cinema, too much perfume at the concert hall, the smell of airline food during a flight. Heck, even the unique aroma of the kids’ sports equipment. OK, maybe not that one!
• Most of all, you are oh-so-very-tired of seeing faces in Zoom squares on your computer screen. All you want to do is see your family and friends in person, give them a real hug, and compare who has gained more COVID weight.

And so we carry on, as stoically as we can, waiting for something to give – better weather, more vaccines, eventual herd immunity. … Meanwhile, we will wear our masks, distance, sanitize and get tested as necessary. Here’s hoping 2021 will bring back at least some of the light and freedom that 2020 stole from us. Cheers to that!