FOR almost three long years, the question had lingered in everyone’s mind; when will it end? Finally, when finally one by one, our social liberties, long stifled by a quarantine restrictions that felt more like a prison sentence than a deterrent to covid, slowly began to be lifted like a stage curtain, the once general sigh of dread and frustration had shifted to a resounding “that’s more like it!”
As they say however, fools rush in; and many still managed to catch the tail-end of the weakening virus (as if this were a departing train). For those who remained careful (or skeptical) however, waiting a little bit longer before finally letting their guard down had evidently become the better option. A fellow writer told me that quite a big number of fellow citizens in their country, who rushed too soon once restrictions were lifted, were “trampled at the gates”, as many still contracted the virus. Now since January, their figures had slowly gone up, though not like as before when it was serious and more people had it.
With this in perspective, count us among those who lingered a bit indoors before finally coming out (but not in the way you think). To say the least, it must have been our 14-day quarantine grand prize for cozying up to corona at our home in September last year that was the reason for our add-on paranoia. Truth is, even now, we always find ourselves tensing up bit whenever we encounter a large crowd at the mall during our grocery runs. So, you could imagine double the drama when my son and I drove down to the super-filled polling place more than a week ago and participated in the electoral exercise. Our family edition of PTSD heaven!
In the end, while we have already discussed this in our tiny family and much less accepted our situation as our new normal, we likewise agreed that, perhaps as a form of therapy and getting out of the stressful situation, we ought to either visit nearby mountain resorts or drive down to the beaches where there were less people. Then, a hurrah moment. I remembered those old new age magazines littering the house in the past and thought, the beach option was the perfect remedy! As originally crawling out from the ancient sea, us humans need to be rejuvenated and cleansed by its salt, I remember joking.
In short, we put our foot down, readied our vaccination cards and headed to be healed.
