Just now, I visited my blog. I was shocked to learn that it has been nearly five months since I wrote my last post. How long ago was that? It was, my friends, during the Trump administration. That period seems both very long and not long enough ago. I suspect that the Trump administration will always seem like not long enough ago.

It was also before my second covid vaccination. It was also before both of my mother’s covid vaccinations. On Easter, my mom will get her first hug in over a year from me, her fully vaccinated daughter. Today, she made her first trip in over a year, to the grocery store.

Tomorrow, I am getting my hair cut for the first time since August and before then, the most recent time was January 2020. In other words, I am getting my hair cut for the third time since the beginning of 2020.

Last week, I did a school observation for work, my first in over a year. I saw kindergarten students doing a good job masking, seated six feet apart, in the gym of their Catholic school. They played at recess, still masked, but like normal happy children. It was beautiful. Our public schools have been out for over a year. It is hard to trust the scientific advances since the beginning of the pandemic. I get it. But I see families on the edge of desperation in my psychology practice. I know that there are untold numbers of families who lack emotional, logistical, and economic resources to see me. I worry about those families a lot. Some of their members have died over the pandemic in quantities that exceed the numbers that we typically grieve and hold dear. Our children will have the opportunity to return to school if not already offered, next month, due to our governor’s emergency action. We will need to continue to be careful but it is good for kids to return to school and there are ways to balance the risks and benefits. There is never zero risk but that is a topic for another post.

At my work, I have been doing a combination of telehealth and in-person visits, the latter for testing procedures that cannot be done via telehealth. In my office, I take a lot of precautions, masking, handwashing, distancing, a true HEPA filter, and the door open to my outside balcony. I have a carbon dioxide filter and make sure that it shows lower than 600 ppm. I only schedule people when I know I will be the only one working at my office. Work is busy and currently, my earliest appointments are in late August. I continue to schedule according to my pandemic protocol, a combination of Zoom appointments in-person appointments. With the current rate of vaccination in my country, I may not have to do this once August comes. But I continue because the future in uncertain.

I have been in a holding pattern of pandemic life and I will continue to do so, to a certain extent, until its end. Many will suffer between now and then and for many suffering will continue. Suffering and loss are like that. This pandemic has been horrible and I have been among the ones least impacted.

For now, I will appreciate the fact that the northern hemisphere is still here after the winter of 2020/21, a winter that began with the Trump administration and ushered in the Biden administration.

Things are changing and in some important ways.

Be well, friends. Happy Easter.

-Elizabeth

Pulsatilla Vulgaris. European Pasque Flower.