This Year Went Quickly
It’s the last month of 2021. I’m going to be honest: I don’t know where this year has gone. I can’t believe we’ve done another full year of the pandemic. Like the pandemic started in 2019 — it’s in the name. How are we going to be in 2022 in 31 days?
And the weird thing is that my life hasn’t changed much post-vaccine. I am still mostly staying in. Still not hanging out with friends. Still not traveling or dining out. I go out a little more — especially when we have a mask mandate — but overall, my life in December 2020 looks a lot like my life in December 2021. So it’s not as if I’ve gotten back in the swing of things and time feels like it’s moving quickly because I’m doing so many interesting new things.
I am not, for instance, making “this year count after a lost year.”
Nor is this year emotionally that different from last year. It is more of the same; the same unknowns and the same questions and the same frustrations and the same gratitude.
Except 2020 felt like it took a long time, and 2021 felt like it took no time.
What about you?
9 comments
I think I’d agree overall, Mel. I was just going through some of my posts from the past year, starting to draft some year-end posts, and thinking about everything that’s happened — or not. We so hoped at the beginning of the year, with vaccines on the horizon, that we’d be through this pandemic by now — and we’re not. Being vaccinated, plus vaccine mandates in many places, have meant we’ve been feeling more confident/comfortable about getting out a little more and visiting BIL & family, and spending a weekend with dh’s cousins at their cottage this fall, AND travelling to see my parents & sister in Manitoba in October. So I haven’t felt QUITE as anxious/depressed and restricted/isolated as I did for most of 2020. But we’re still being pretty cautious. Case rates here were on the rise again, even before we started hearing about Omicron — even though our public health measures here have been stricter/in place longer than most places in North America. I can’t help thinking that we’d be in a much better place — if not done with covid entirely — if more people (locally and globally) were vaccinated and following public health measures — but, here we are… I know we’re all SO tired of this, but it’s not over yet, by a long shot. 🙁
Yeah, spring of 2020 felt like it took forever, but you could fit like five 2021s in that time period! Time is weird. I certainly had a lot more excitement this year (vaccines! Visits to family! The start of high school! Driving practice!), but I don’t know where the time went.
I do have pandemic fatigue though. I keep forgetting to grab a mask on my way out of the house. It’s fine – I always have disposables in the car, but it’s just unusual for me to be so specifically forgetful.
Same, same. Sadly I am a lot more pessimistic now than I was a year ago. A year ago vaccines were here/coming & Biden was about to take over, so there was hope. But despite all that government at all levels gas continued to underreact and blow this thing. A vaccine-only response has been proven to be inadequate and yet here we are with omicron and our leaders are continuing to push only vaccination instead of including ventilation, good masks, and cleaning the air.
A lot of the same. However my kids went back to school in person this year and it’s been so much. So much good – they’re happy. So much stress – people are still reckless and selfish and stupid and there’s many, many covid cases. My kids also were finally able to be vaccinated in the last month. And of course we all (adults) could get our vaccines too. When I type it all out, this year is a lot different. But when I feel it, it feels the same, you know? It’s still scary and uncertain and feels never ending.
My 2021 did not zip by, every single day that I spent another day/week/month not doing the things I want (hanging out with friends) a little more of me dies inside. Sure, I have a great job now, but I’m still stuck in the house (a funny thing to say since I’ve worked remotely for almost 20 years) but I always had the OPTION of leaving. Now, I practically have to fight my husband every time.
It feels like this year has flown by, but then I think back to the first three to four months of this year, when we were cleaning out and selling FIL’s house, and they feel like another lifetime. So I’m torn.
We haven’t suffered the same restrictions over covid, of course, so I can’t imagine how it has been for you. I am a bit freaked out though that 2022 is almost here, and we still can’t travel easily (or safely? we don’t know with omicron) overseas. Sigh.
I usually put down time flying by as just part of ageing. lol
Same, Mel, same. Even with the booster. And everyone in the house know fully vaxxed. (Thank you Phizer for being first with the kiddie doses!)
All of the uncertainty you feel, all of the sameness too. I literally don’t know why this year went by so fast or even how…everything since March 2020 feels like a damn blur of time.
I did manage to safely fly to visit and friend and back. I double masked and it was a short flight. And we stayed in, got DoorDash, and just sat. Both of us fully vaccinated, me boosted, both with negative tests. I did venture in to a few places to shop, but even that was very spread out. And where I was has a strict mask mandate so it felt safer than home actually.
But I don’t think I’ll be doing that again for a while. I went just before this newest wave when numbers were down all around for that brief moment.
My year was spent at home. Just like last year. I’m so grateful I found a hobby I love just a year before the pandemic hit. This year went by slow at first because I was basically hibernating at home while unemployed and unvaccinated. The second half went faster because I got a new job and bought a house. Time is weird though. I haven’t seen my family in way too long. And I haven’t hung with friends in forever. It’s just a very weird existence… Work and home, but no concerts or restaurants sprinkled in. 🙁
This year flew. But it feels like the pandemic is just never ending. I can’t believe it’s December, and we’re going into another year and we are still dealing with COVID. In fact, it feels almost worse than when it first started, but everything is continuing on in this weird, pseudo-normal way. School is exhausting. Pandemic teaching for this long is just taking everything from us. In October a bunch of my teacher friends were saying it was like March exhaustion–I don’t know how we’re going to keep our sanities until June. The cases are super high, and my district is at the top for the side of the county that we are on. So it’s a weird the time has flown this year but it feels like we’re stuck on a wheel of doom. (Didn’t mean for this to be such a bummer!)