When Can We Hug Again?

The masks, the masks.

Pull your mask up over your nose.

The stress in the hallway. The quiet whispers. The huddled conversations about who, what, when, and where.

We can overcome, they said. We will get through this, they said. Who are they?

The left and the right are divided. We are trying to be strong for our kids.

Circling this way and that to find comfort in the sea of the unknowns and rising numbers.

The students missing and classrooms dark.

The angry parents with expectations that their children should be at school, but at what cost?

We are here a step away from the firing line with germs and sneezes spewing this way and that threatening our very livelihood.

We will overcome, they said. This will soon be a distant memory. Will it though? Will we share this with our great-grandkids as they did about the Great Depression? Will we survive to tell the tales of the masks and mandates? The shots and tests?

This is a real-life pandemic. We are living and some of us dying through a real-life pandemic. The fear is real and many of us are in survival mode. Take it easy on yourself if you are more on alert than ever. This is normal.

We can’t be expected to be our usual productive and upbeat selves when this is weighing heavily on our psyches.

We can do what we can. We can walk ahead one day at a time. We can give ourselves extra grace as well as those around us. We can take this as an opportunity to be thankful for our breath. Thankful for those close to us. Thankful for our freedoms.

And when we look back and see this in our rearview, may we be grateful and stronger for what we have endured. The duress, the empathy. Our hearts pour out for strangers that are suffering. May we come together versus apart. Maybe we can even all hold hands and finally hug those around us. A handshake and a hug won’t feel so foreign. Those will be the days.

For now, what can we do to keep from feeling fatigued and exhausted from the massive worry and outpouring of news that can make us feel like things will never improve? As mandates and mitigation strategies change how can we not only protect ourselves and our families, but also try to seep a little enjoyment out of this life?

Not all of us are experiencing this pandemic in the same way, as there are so many variables involved. Us with students receiving the general notification of exposure wondering if this will be the time we get it. Feeling a slight headache or sore throat and getting nervous or paranoid that we have unknowingly passed it to someone close to us.

The vaccinated folks are still worried about the virus passing through while the unvaxxed wonder if maybe they will still have a job. My elderly unvaxxed grandma trying to find a place she can eat out without a vax card.

I truly am living this day by day. I will look forward to a time when we are able to high-five, hug, and take off these dang masks.

I am off to do another Covid test as I work in a large population of positive cases and I feel like we can't be too safe these days. I don't want to show up somewhere having not realized I was positive and spread it to others. Yes, I'm Vaxxed, but who knows.

I think many of us nowadays will be experts on testing facilities and we will all be well versed in how it feels to spit in a tube or have a nasal probing.

I pray we can all learn to rest easy and be here for one another through this 2020-2021 and beyond.