The inferno rages. The smoke clears. The reckoning begins.
What was the point you realized things were going to change? Not just for a few weeks, or for a few months, or a year. When did you realize things were going to be different forever?
Events like this don’t happen often, not on a global level. There is no off switch. There’s no shortage of damage that has already been done. More is coming.
The ramifications of the pandemic will be felt long after it’s over. It always takes time after a fire to survey the damage. Unfortunately, we’re still in the inferno.
The impacts will be felt on a global, national, local and hyperlocal scale. Economies will be changed forever. Some businesses will be decimated. Some already are. Some will emerge stronger on the other side. There will be needs because of the pandemic that wouldn’t have been needed in February, and people will rise up to meet those needs.
The healthcare industry will change, forever, in some ways. How we do healthcare will be different. Hopefully, how we prepare for future disasters will be altered. How will we change how care is administered? What about how people pay for that care?
Jobs will change. Will companies return to offices when it is safe to do so, or will we see that it’s more cost-effective to have employees work from home? Will people who used to prefer living downtown to be close to their workplace have the same desire if they’re just going to work from their apartment? If foot traffic in downtown areas lessens significantly, what does that mean for the businesses that rely on people walking to and from work on a daily basis? What does that mean for safety?
We don’t know any of the answers to these questions — or so many others that exist — and we won’t until the smoke clears . That could be months from now, if we’re lucky.
What about intrapersonal (within onself) and interpersonal (between two or more people) relationships? How will those change? What are the impacts of people largely living in isolation for 12 months? What will it look like when it is safe for people to begin reintegrating themselves into society?
My relationships have altered drastically since March. I entered the start of the pandemic recently single, went through the lockdown in isolation, and went on an in-person date in June. She’s still putting up with me. But even that relationship has gone through stages — the “dating” stage for a month or so, the “relationship” stage for 3–4 months, and now what is essentially another stage of no in-person contact. It works, but it’s weird sometimes, and it’s going to continue to be weird until…? It’s the …? that’s the hardest.
I haven’t seen coworkers in person since March. I’ve seen a few friends once. I’ve had a few friends that have slowly drifted away. I’ve seen my parents a few times, but I didn’t see them at Thanksgiving. I probably won’t see them at Christmas. New Year’s? Who knows.
It’s all weird, and admittedly frustrating, in the moment. But it’s easier knowing it’s the right thing to do. The alternative is to potentially infect myself or others with a virus that doesn’t even register to some and is deadly to others. I don’t care about percentages. I care about the potential worst-case scenario. You can call it fear-mongering if you want. Frankly, the notion of ending up on a ventilator, or someone I know or love facing the same fate, does scare the shit out of me.
Reality for the next 3–4 months will be a damn dark one. But if we can get through this next phase, we’ll quickly be confronted with a whole new set of choices.
You know the movies where a character sees its world in an entirely new perspective? That building is the same, or that restaurant is the same, but it looks different. Feels different. I’m imaging that’s what it’s going to be like when the world returns to what we formerly knew. In some ways, plenty will be the same. But so much will be different.
Now is the time to start thinking about what that might look like for you. What are you going to do differently? Resume doing? Stop doing? Who are you going to invest in? These are heady questions, and ones few people are probably in a place to contemplate now.
But contemplate this: 279,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the United States, and that number will likely skyrocket between now and the start of Spring. Those people, whatever the number ends up being, won’t get the shot to return to normalcy.
If you are one of the lucky ones to emerge from the fire, what’s next? You don’t need to have answers now. There’s plenty of time to figure it out. But if you’re lucky, “what’s next?” eventually changes from a question about how you’ll spend tomorrow to how you’ll spend the next era — one that no one can predict, but with no shortage of opportunities and potential.
