RECAFEEINATED MONDAYS: Look at all of the Stuff I Didn’t Get Done

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure? Measure a year?

Seasons of Love from Rent

It’s the first day in the rest of your pandemic. Well, technically that was yesterday, but why are we even bothering with calendars anymore?

Like the rest of you, I remember thinking “I can do this for two weeks.”

We had no idea.

I’ve used this reference before. It was like the landing scene in Airplane.

Now arriving Gate 8…Gate 9….

I’m not sure when it was that I first said to a co-worker…”we’re never going back.”

Sure the lockdown will be over eventually, long before July 4 if you get my drift, but office work will never be quite the same. Why continue to pay high rent prices when this whole teleworking thing has actually worked out and people are just as productive, if not more productive, than at the office?

While not as close as I would like to be, and while definitely not as close as I was in a pre-pandemic, pre-cancer diagnosis world, I’m fairly close to retirement. Maybe they’ll just tell me to stay home.

My downtown office is prime real estate, and I have what is arguably one of the best views in the City of Richmond. If you followed me on Instagram, you’d already know that.

Who am I to quibble if I’m told to telework and someone else eventually gets that office space?

But that’s not what I planned to write about.

I’ve looked back at some of my notes and plans that I made early on when we were under house arrest.

The Write Side Shop
(click the pic)

Lose some weight, learn to play the ukulele, practice piano, finish the novel…I could go on, but I think we’re all fighting depression as it is.

I didn’t get all of those things done. But I did a lot of other things.

We managed to pull off a pretty spectacular celebration of my Mother’s 90th birthday.

We had a glorious week at the beach.

I learned how to be a virtual Santa Claus.

And, not that you can necessarily tell it now, we cleaned out the garage.

Perhaps I was naive to think that I’d accomplish so much, but I’m not going to beat myself up over not crossing all those things off the list. You shouldn’t either.

What’s important is that we kept moving. We kept doing what we had to do to survive.

So what if I ran out of things to binge on Netflix or Disney+ ?

I’m actually now somewhere in Season 10 of The Simpsons. Friday night, for the first time with this show, and for the first time in a long time, I actually snort-laughed. I still chuckle when I think about the scene of Homer’s bare backside sliding across the roof of the Crystal Cathedral.

None of us knew what this would be like. Most of us have just done what we needed to do to survive.

I’ll admit that for a while I’d feel bad if I didn’t spend a certain amount of time writing, or doing yard work, or if I didn’t make it to the gym every day.

But somewhere in the fall I realized that “Hey, we’re fighting a pandemic and I’ve been diagnosed with cancer. It’s okay to just sit her for a while, or a day.”

Truth is, in the last couple of weeks I’ve felt better and more energetic.

Maybe it’s the apple cider gummies. Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten back to a regular walking schedule. Maybe it’s the approach of Spring.

So, don’t feel sorry for me. I have excellent doctors and there’s a definite plan. Sure, this is a pain in the butt (literally), but there’s an end in sight…so to speak.

Do feel free to pray for me. But also pray for your neighbors. Pray for our country. Pray for the front line workers.

When the riots started last summer, I wrote that sometimes that’s all we can do. And sometimes that’s enough.

Just pray.

While I don’t think the virus, or many others, will ever completely go away, we will eventually see an end to the lockdowns. Perhaps we’ll even learn that the devastation caused by the lockdowns was far worse than the virus itself.

And when future generations turn to us and ask “what did you do during the pandemic?” we can say “I survived and did the best that I could.”

And, I prayed.

Photo by NORTHFOLK on Unsplash