I’ll be honest, I don’t want to go back to the “normal” we had in February.
I was killing myself with business travel. It was a slow sort of killing … but killing nonetheless. I was on a train most weeks and a plane most months. I was on track to hit lifetime platinum status with Marriott – more than 50 room nights a year for 10 years. A year and a half of my life in hotels.
For what?
Now I exercise almost every day, at least a little bit. I stock the fridge once a week, mostly with veggies and selected meats. Ordering delivery is a special treat.
My spouse and I have worked out patterns in our daily routines to let us be this close without killing each other. We’re going to keep many of those. We should have done that years ago.
I’ve re-connected with people and communities, and even made art. That was always available, I just didn’t make time for it.
Work meetings include space to check in with the other people in the room. We’re making accommodations for each other in ways that we never did before. Never ever. We know more about each other, and it’s okay.
Honestly, video hangout meals in the evenings with friends are -better- than physically getting together in many ways. Not least, the obligation to clean up the whole house, agree on food for everybody, and so on simply disappears. It’s all about showing up.
Seeing people in person is truly precious. We’ve gotten careful with each other’s space and vulnerability.
We all realize now, I hope, that the truly “essential” employees are the underpaid, ill treated, and all-too-frequently invisible laborers, drivers, cooks, and cleaners on whom we build our posh life. I hope we can go ahead and PAY them fairly rather than just blathering on about heroism.
I hope that as we re-open, for all the good reasons that we need to re-open, that we can keep some of what we’ve learned here.
I don’t want to go back to killing myself.
