Have you taken any steps in processing the pandemic?
Over the last five or so years, two of my dearest friends and I have fallen into a rhythm in which one of us will randomly send a message in our group text, “Margaritas?”
We’ll then start the chess match of finding an evening all three of us are available to meet for dinner. These dinners often last for hours as we share updates, reminisce, talk about mothering and marriage and our families and careers. More than once, we’ve shut down the inside of the restaurant and then lingered in the parking lot way past the time the employees have gone home.
We met most recently in December, just before the holidays. As we sat down, my friend commented on how this was the first time we had eaten inside together since Covid began. As we let the reality of that sink in, we remembered how just about a year prior, we had each picked up our own food and met and ate and reminisced over Zoom instead of in person.
Our catching up continued as we shared plans for the holiday season, upcoming travel, and career updates. More than once, the conversation circled back to pandemic related processing. We heard about how my friend’s high school students were navigating finals, masks and virtual learning. We heard about my other friend’s son and his experience in the classroom this year compared to last year. I shared about my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary, and the family trip that was coming up that I hoped wouldn’t be canceled or negatively impacted by Covid. (Spoiler Alert- it was.)
At some point, the conversation turned to us each sharing a few of our memories from the days before the initial lockdowns in early March of 2020. How my teacher friend encouraged her students to make sure they took their books home before Spring Break, in case they ended up home for an extra week or so— and then she never saw those students in person in class again. How my other friend was teased by her boss for taking home her plants, because surely the office wouldn’t be closing. I retold the story of how my husband and I were in Colorado with friends on March 13, and found ourselves trying to get home to our kids as fast as possible, as we started getting updates of schools closing, and hearing rumors of the country being shut down.
My friends and I shared these stories and more from those early days of lockdown.
We have met for dinner numerous times since the pandemic started. We had probably each heard most, if not all, of the stories we shared that night. We probably lived out a lot of these experiences in real-time together via text.
But –
There was something about putting words to it again around that table.
Re-remembering those weeks leading up to the initial shutdowns,
Re-remembering those first few weeks and the memories that are seared so specifically in our brains.
It felt helpful to put words to it all, and to be heard by my dear friends, again.
As we continue to round the corner of the two-year anniversary of when Covid began to impact us and the shutdowns began, I wonder if you, too, would find it helpful to remember and tell your stories from those early weeks.
With the ongoing and universal nature of this pandemic and everything else that has unfolded since it is easy to minimize and compare our experiences. It is easy to downplay its impact on us. It is easy to know that others have had it much worse, and so we downplay our experiences instead of allowing them to take up space.
But we need to remember.
We need to retell our stories.
I came away from that dinner in December feeling a little lighter and more deeply connected. I was reminded of the importance of putting words to our experiences and having our friends bear witness to our lives. I hope that you’ll spend some time in the coming weeks re-remembering and re-telling your Pandemic Story. It matters – and so do you.
Questions to Help you Remember
Early Pandemic Days
- When was the first time you heard about the Coronavirus?
- What were your thoughts, predictions, or feelings about the virus in February and early March?
- How did the stay-at-home orders impact your work/school/social life?
- Did you pick up any new hobbies or habits or learn anything new during the lockdown days?
- What memories stick out to you from those early lockdown days?
- What needs were you able to meet in that season? What needs felt impossible to meet?
- How are you different, or what has changed about you due to Covid?
