Though I’ve wanted to, I haven’t written in a long time now. Last year, as March gave way to second March gave way to the dog days of summer March, I’d figured continuing to work on the blog would be an excellent project, savoring the travel we’d already done as a way to fill the gap left by the travel we couldn’t currently do. I felt incredibly lucky and thankful that we’d been able to take our world adventure, and that the pandemic didn’t happen while we were traveling. Or, even worse, while we were preparing to go! So I was excited to keep writing.

What I didn’t expect is for everything to feel so heavy. At first–because deep down we weren’t really taking things seriously–life was easy. It felt like a big snowstorm, complete with people buying up all the toilet paper and bread. Sure, it was disconcerting to look out our apartment window at Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge during what should have been rush hour, and find it as empty as a major city in a post-apocalyptic movie, but… this was all temporary, right?

At first, it felt like we had nothing but time on our hands. Erika got sourdough starter and started baking. I started brewing beer. How is it, by the way, that so many people started, of their own independent idea, getting sourdough starter and baking? How is it that that idea is buried in so many people’s heads that, come a quarantine, it just spontaneously and independently hatches from each of those people? I remember how hard it was for Erika to get flour at first–everyone was baking! Sociologists are going to have a field day analyzing human behavior over our last twelve months.

Somehow, as the days passed, we did less and less, and yet at the same time our free time seemed to dwindle. Starting projects became unimaginable, even trying to stay in contact with friends felt like an impossible lift. The weight gradually became immense. Waves of justified and overdue protests for racial equality swept the country through the summer. Buildings throughout downtown Boston were boarded up. It felt like it just wasn’t really the time to brag about the awesome experiences we had in Vietnam.

Today marks one year since we essentially retreated from society. The Friday of that week was Erika’s last time working in the office, before her company went fully remote. And though for a while they kept stressfully insisting that in mere weeks everyone would be back in the office, that obviously never happened, and now we wonder if it’ll even happen this year.

Our last weekend in society was a busy one, which… what the hell were we thinking?! The answer is we weren’t, we weren’t taking it seriously yet. But now, I think in horror about the things we did. In that one weekend, we (deep breath) went to the climbing gym then went out to dinner at a sushi restaurant, went to two open houses as we were still trying to buy a house, went to brunch between those open houses, RODE A CITY BUS (!) to the second open house, went to a Pi-day party at some friends’ house which their pregnant friend (!!) also attended, and went to the grocery store at the same time as the rest of Somerville where we bought end of days quantities of rice and lentils (and also some cans of Goya fucking chickpeas, which I only remember because shortly after is when they decided to broadcast that they’re fascist sympathizers, #cancelled).

That’s all horrifying! Like, writing it all down now I’m twitching anxiously. Beyond that, though, what struck me was: this was just a regular weekend. This wasn’t us trying to live it up, 25th Hour style, before we’re off to prison. No, it was just a regular old weekend, us just doing regular old things we do every weekend.

Which gives me anxiety for another reason as well: oh my god there aren’t that many hours in a weekend, how did you do it!? Now, if our weekend involves a Saturday walk somewhere in Boston, then cooking dinner Sunday night, I’m left saying Jesus this is a busy weekend! Well it’s back to work already!

What happened? Where does the time go? I’m desperate to get through the work week so I can get to the weekend and finally do the things I want to do, which is… uh, I don’t even know, because suddenly it’s late Sunday night, and as I think back over what I did on the weekend I realize oh right , it was nothing, and yet throughout I always felt like there wasn’t the time to do the things I want to do. Meanwhile Erika and I are talking about something that happened before and I’m only very sure it happened just last Tuesday but Erika helps me realize it actually happened three months ago. What is this hellish time warp we’re stuck in?

BUT.

But. For the first time in this longest March, I feel some optimism. There’s a competent, effective, empathetic adult in the White House now, and the previous guy has been returned to just being a clown–instead of a clown that can destroy the world. We have three vaccines–already!–and they’re incredibly effective. Out of everyone who got them during the vaccine trials, exactly zero people have been hospitalized or have died due to COVID. That’s amazing! And they’re close! My parents have been vaccinated! Thank god! And though I’m sure I’ll be the last person whose turn it is, my turn is coming relatively soon. Then, I can try to learn how to have those sorts of weekends again.

I’d like to think that we’ll mine some value from this past year, but I think it’s going to take a while and we’re going to have to get out of it first, before we can look back and find it. Maybe it’ll be different priorities. Maybe it’ll be a more powerful resolve for something. I don’t know what it’ll be, ’cause right now everything just sucks. But something will show itself.

(One thing I’m definitely taking from this past year is mask wearing. You think come flu season, that you’ll ever catch me on the Boston T without a mask? Or on an airplane without a mask? Think again!)

So with this budding optimism, I’m once again trying to return to this writing project. I don’t expect anyone will follow along, but then I’ve never expected anyone to, and was always tickled when ever anyone told me they’d read my posts. I just do it because I enjoy writing, enjoy reliving those experiences we had, and hope to dig into them and find extra emotion or meaning that I didn’t realize was there.

And hopefully, soon, I’ll look at the calendar and it’ll say June, or July, or August, instead of always fucking March.