The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
I do sense these days that I am, indeed, lucky when it comes to this COVID thing crushing health records by the day. Fortunately, at 74, I am well and grateful. Although, I feel ripped off by this killer pandemic, what it has done to vanishing the remaining years of my life.
I call these times the dead zone, the lost months, and years. The grief is palpable. I miss my family, friends, neighbors. Heck, I even miss talking to new acquaintances at a bar. There is no rhythm in my life.
Death takes an immediate presence. Mortality is no longer an abstraction when you have friends and relatives die of COVID-19. Something that was once in the world is now gone forever. Yet, as a wizened journalist, I long to recall our lost glories. It’s all so dang confounding, and time is of the essence.
These years were supposed to be the best of times. I worked, planned, saved, did without only to find this corrupt contagion take control of everything, negating my preparations.
Social isolation is leaching away at my forte. The next stage of life is seemingly evaporating. Designing for the future feels to be simply a contradiction. There is no time for do-overs, no mulligans left in my bag. I’m all in.
Mercifully, we do have hope on the horizon, a vaccine that promises optimism, an opportunity to gain some control of this worldwide virulent disease. The inoculation program provides a possibility to take our lives back sometime in 2021.
I realize the world has changed and that things will be different. Yearning for normalcy occupies my day, along with fear of the economic toll for the millions who know not what tomorrow will bring; we experience collective grief for humanity.
Our homes now serve as workshops, Internet bazaars, libraries, health centers, communication command hubs and prisons. Depending on attitudes, being stuck in our homes can dazzle us or defeat us.
Now that the world can see that faint joyful glow down the proverbial passage, I can look forward to becoming nearly plump with springtime while connecting hope with the future.
However, as I age, I realize that things that were important to me are falling to the verge. The trips I planned to take are no longer worth the work. I am giving in to a form of laziness as the days linger on to those precious few.
Meanwhile, my mind rests on maudlin cliches about old neighborhoods. I dream about places that are gone, people, ballgames, a favorite restaurant, concerts, and movies; oh, how I do miss new films.
In those places, I was happy. Sentimentality is not overrated. It allows our psyches to regenerate. Today, we have little of these everyday activities to consider under the predator’s realm of COVID-19. Consequently, I think the idea of death as absconded with my soul.
So, I am going to leave things alone. Let this worm of a disease run its course. I’m giving up on the idea of renewal, that variation of the dream of perpetual youth, and seek what is truly valuable.
I’ll try embracing the inevitable throughout this year. So that on some glorious morning, I can take a sudden turn at a corner and, to my astonishment, discover that I am still capable of surprise.
On that day, I will surrender myself to the most romantic and tragic emotion of all. That is, I want to live forever. It’s a fake move. But I get through another day and night.
