Life Begins Again

Mistakes Will Be Made. Guaranteed.

South Central Connecticut, where I live, is getting back to normal, and I’m doing my best to follow suit. Yesterday, I went grocery shopping for the first time in over a year without feeling furtive about it, and when I rounded a corner, coming perilously close to a fellow shopper, we didn’t scream involuntarily, or glare. Progress!

But I am sensing, as we are starting to re-connect in the ways humans have always connected, something that feels like thunderhead gathering. You see, I’ve forgotten how to behave in public.

For example, after the grocery store, I went to Target to buy placemats and a paper towel holder, and the cashier said, “Thanks for shopping at Target,” to which I responded, “You, too.” As I drove home, beating myself up about my gaffe (You, too? Ugh, Laura. How embarrassing!) I realized that I was talking animatedly to myself, much to the amusement of the guy at the stop light next to me.

These are just small weirdnesses in front of strangers, but how am I going to act at social gatherings? Can I sustain a conversation? I’ve recently noticed I’m licking my lips all the time. What’s up with that? What if I forgot how to match my clothes? So many questions I don’t know the answer to!

I think I have to focus on the fact that we’re all pretty much in the same boat. We’d gotten used to lockdown. Now life opens before us, and the dancing we did while nobody was looking is about to be taken public. With good reason, we worry we will look like idiots.

Last March, we fretted nonstop about sickness and death. Where was this going to end up? It felt apocalyptic. That kind of existential question mark changes us profoundly. In the aftermath, even as we’re struggling to remember who we were, we have to figure out how to be, together.

To take the pressure off, we might want to keep our expectations low. Find the humor in situations. Forgive ourselves and others, including guffawing jerks in pickup trucks at stop lights.

I still have some work to do on that last one, but I’ll get there.