We weathered the pandemic year for better or for worse. I know that for me I was focused mainly on the wins throughout the year as it took that positive outlook to navigate a whole new world with many undesired limitations. And now, with the limitations mostly over, we're not exactly picking up where we left off, but instead moving forward with some tried-and-true traditions and interests of the past and some new lifeways and circumstances that we acquired throughout the pandemic year.
One strange aspect of this post-pandemic time is that sometimes you get waves of sadness about the year past--while you spent a year simply working as hard as you could to survive the year, you may not have reckoned with the losses of the past year. In fact, you may have simply buried those losses deep down inside yourself in order to make the best of a year of limitations and loss.
Today that happened to me. All of a sudden, a pandemic loss awakened in me. I had not thought a lot about that loss throughout the year. It wasn't as grave a loss as the death or illness of a loved one, but a loss none the less. When the loss came to my attention, I became very sad and realized that I had not significantly grieved that loss as I might have done if it had not been a pandemic year. Instead, I dutifully pushed through it with my sights set on silver linings.
Waves of sadness about the pandemic year will likely hit all of us now and then, and I think it's good to make time to think through that sadness, accept it, find meaning in it somehow and then move on. These waves of sadness may surprise us when they arrive, but just knowing that they will happen brings a sense of comfort. Onward.