What We Learned About Ourselves in the First Year of the Pandemic

A version of this article appeared in this week’s It’s Not Just You newsletter. SUBSCRIBE HERE to have an It’s Not Just You essay delivered to your inbox every Sunday. March is the anteroom of months. It’s both the end of last year’s winter and the beginning of the new year’s spring. It’s half slush, half-quixotic hope. I had my first baby in March–a child that arrived nine days late, already a solid little being with startling almond eyes and the appetite of a toddler. I had no idea what I was doing; we two just hunkered down and tried to figure each other out. I still flounder at the start of every March, for different reasons every year, staggering out of February a soggy, angsty creature whose clothes don’t fit. But somehow, I slip-slide toward the end of the month, and things start to make sense. Maybe the vernal equinox is what helps get us back on track every spring. It’s that moment, usually, on the 20th or 21st of March, when the entire planet is in balance, both the northern and southern hemispheres have the same amount of daylight as darkness. This year we could use a little vernal harmony as we emerge like moles into the sunlight after 12 months of shutdowns and loss. Hope is still skittish these days, slipping in and out of the back door. But the numbers are going in the right direction. Vaccines are here in bulk, and while distribution still feels like it was set up by the folks who brought us...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Evergreen It's Not Just You Source Type: news