It’s hard to believe that we are almost in the spring of 2021. In so many ways, it feels like a matter of weeks have passed since mid-March of last year, when our entire lives were pulled out from under us by a threat we barely even knew. But, in other ways, I’m reminded constantly of just how much can change in a year and that even though so many of us are still trying to do our best where we can as we work from home, doing dishes and taking garbage out on lunch breaks, those details of our lives are now taking place in a different world than the one from March of last year.
And things are changing fast: just yesterday Camosun College announced a return to in-person learning this September. Truth be told, I’m still processing this and will have much more to say about this next week.
Before that announcement, on Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that fully vaccinated Americans can have small indoor gatherings with other fully vaccinated Americans. While not an example from our country, it is likely an example of the kind of guidelines to roll to our shores soon.
I’m not sure how you would actually enforce that. Will vaccine paperwork be the new drivers licence, where we’ll be required to have it on us? The details of a policy like that, in my opinion, are a recipe for the kind of disastrous interpretation that we’ve seen so often lead to a rise in cases, but in the past year I’ve learned that how other people may or may not interpret a set of rules is not really my business.
What I’m choosing to focus on these days is not the negativity but the increasing rays of hope with each passing day and week. Maybe it’s my family members talking about a possible trip to Disneyland in 2022, or my aunt—a frontline worker—getting her first shot, but it seems like the end might be in sight, and regardless of your stance on vaccines, you can’t possibly tell me that that doesn’t make you get a little bit more of a hop in your step.
What a victorious new chapter to all of this it will be. We’ve all shown exemplary displays of valour in one way or another throughout the past year, and we owe it to ourselves to ride this wave of positivity, to cling on to good news and question it when needed, but not let those questions put us into the state we’ve become so accustomed to being in.