Sure, everyone writes their 2020 retrospective columns for January, and, normally, I would make a snark-filled list of things I won’t miss about last year (I’m looking at you, Facebook). But, despite 2020’s attempt to make us pine for the more exciting days of roller disco or Star Wars Episodes 1-3 (because we had to leave the house to enjoy them) there are some things I’m hoping we can enjoy as the norm for just a while.
Right off the bat, as an introvert, I no longer have to pretend that I’d really like to go somewhere then make up a believable reason that I can’t. I was running out of broken plumbing and looking-for-lost-homework excuses, and it’s just rude to say, “It’s ‘The Good Doctor’ night and my DVR is too full to record it.” As a bonus, I can safely scroll through my social media feeds without a sense of FOMO, because nothing happened, and no one posted about it.
On that note, I’m also enjoying the relative good health of my spine because not leaving the house means not carrying a purse, backpack, or laptop bag, with their accompanying and various collections of “stuff I need for the place I’m going.” All of these include some kind of snack, many of which are just over there in the pantry.
Staying home means I don’t have to decide ahead of time what I might have a craving for…just eat it when the mood strikes. I will, however, stipulate that now I’m carrying the ‘rona-15 at all times, but the only people who know it are in my house, and they’re as big as me.
I am also happy that, in the Venn Diagram of my closet, the intersection of “things I prefer to wear” and “things people haven’t seen me wear in a while” is also, functionally, the union of the two. The other day I was getting dressed and my Darling asked, “Do you want me to bring you the shirt?” and we laughed and laughed… because as any perfect spouse would do, he doesn’t mind that I’ve been wearing the same sweatshirt for four days. But he’s the only one who knows it. (Until I write it in a magazine, I guess.) Getting meals at a drive-through, and groceries shopped and brought to me; I barely even have to wear shoes any more.
My family has also adapted to Zoom, which is a nice change. No longer do we negotiate who has to buy the $900 turkey dinner, because no one was obligated (allowed) to pay for expensive travel to enjoy a single meal together. We spend more time together from four states than we have since we all lived together. Cheaper, and more often. Who knew?
I feel the same about every video meeting I had last year. I do miss seeing some people in person, and small group would be more fun as an actual group, but I think I would also love to do the time-equity math on the time I did not spend shutting down, driving across town, driving home, and getting back into the right thought lane to resume my work tasks.
What I’m getting at is the idea that merely putting up a new calendar didn’t change anything about the 2020 lifestyle. But I am pleased to ponder great things to enjoy in the infinitely-short present, because the future is infinitely long. I stopped looking at these life changes as some kind of countdown to whatever is next because that just caused no end of worry. That, and I still love not going anywhere.
Sure, there are still many, many things that stink about this time, but we have CNN for that, and the whole point of getting my Poppy on is to feel better about stuff.
So I’m going to put my hair in a ponytail, put on my most comfortable jeans (which are right where I left them from yesterday), and my favorite sweatshirt, then binge-watch reruns of “The Big Bang Theory” while eating whatever Waiter With Wheels brought me, and be happy that is all anyone expects of me today.