Monday March 7, 2022 // Past Bedtime
We’re roughly a week shy from the two year anniversary of the day life got turned upside down for virtually everyone. Two years ago my little guy was 9 months old. He had just started crawling. Actually, he was doing this thing where he’d basically butterfly stroke forward rather than a traditional crawl. Today, he’s a (mostly) talking, leaping, jumping, iPhone-using, amazing tiny human.
Moments ago I was doing the usual late evening scroll through the socials and was reading some thread on the bird app. It was about, shocker, the pandemic, getting back to normal, and “reclaiming what we lost”.
What we lost??? Commutes? Expensive office lunches? Daycare payments? Dress clothes that were too tight fitting? Socks?? None of these are losses to me.
But of course we lost things. My parents lost a ton of time with their grandson. My grandma has only seen her great grandson once. My best friend who lives a state away, also only seen him once. All this world travel we wanted to do with him to set him down this life path we didn’t get to have until our late 20s, yeah missed that. However these are moments that can never be reclaimed. They are gone. You can’t just go back and make these memories happen.
Fortunately my family and friends have been spared from any tragedies from Covid. Removing the whole global disease from the equation, whatever it was that I lost I have gained back in an unquantifiable multitude in the time that I’ve been able to spend with my son.
Related Reading: Where Do We Go From Here?
We lost out on travel and adventures, sure. Even so, I get to spend every morning playing legos with my kid. I’m not rushing out the door before my son and the sun are both up. Fighting Northern Virginia traffic. For him to go spend the majority of his day with strangers. For me to get him in the evening, worn down from the day. To have a meal together and immediately clean up and do nighttime just to do it all over again.
No. That’s not the life I’ve lived the past two years or the life I’m planning on going back to.
What I’ve lost? I’ll take that trade in a heartbeat.
– Josh // Reflecting