This post may contain affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
I saw an interesting thing floating around social media the other day: a reminder that five years ago, this week was the last normal week for a lot of Americans, as government shut downs started happening in mid March. Let’s discuss — what was your life like, five years ago? How did it change during 2020, and how has it changed since?
Probably the best thing we published during that time period was written by a commenter, who graciously allowed us to republish it as a post — The Ideal COVID-19 Quarantine Woman. From the opening paragraph:
She lives alone. Unless she has children. Then they live with her. But she doesn’t take them out. They magically entertain themselves so she can go out for essential trips. No more than once every two weeks. For essential groceries. She doesn’t need toilet paper. She stocked up months ago well before there was a run on toilet paper or anyone could accuse her of hoarding. But her supply is safe since she installed a bidet last week. She has a fully stocked basement of anything she or her family may need for six months.
Wow — that really takes me back. In some ways the pandemic didn’t change my life too much, considering I’ve been working from home for quite a while now, but having the kids home, without childcare (and virtual school, gah) was… really something. (I should note that my family was very fortunate to not have anyone be too affected by COVID-19.) I don’t think we can know yet how much the kids’ lives have been affected by those odd years.
In other ways the pandemic changed my life immensely — for someone who thinks about workwear as often as I do, work clothes have changed greatly, and I feel like a lot of attitudes around careers have changed immensely. I also feel like, in general, people trust each other less, particularly around collective health issues like vaccinations.
With the kids back in school we’ve been as back to normal as it gets these days, but I do have other family members who are still very COVID-cautious — wearing masks in public and avoiding indoor dining. (I still try to encourage my nuclear family to wear a mask while flying, at least until the airplane’s air filtration system kicks in at 30,000 feet — but that is increasingly less popular with the kids.) We’ve always been cautious about dining indoors after the Thanksgiving/Christmas time period, too, but this year we celebrated my January birthday at a regular restaurant.
Stock photo via Stencil.