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Last Year

A few weeks ago, when J called me I asked her how her weekend was. She said it's around mid-night here on Saturday and I am talking you and we both laughed. My baby is a grown woman and we were chatting like friends. The year we all lived through has been awful by most counts and when we thought things could not get worse, they inevitably did. Fatigue is a common theme at home and burnout at work. There was more time and more aggravation to fill it when we were not despairing for loneliness and not having human contact for months on end. At the time of that call, J was waiting for some of her friends who had been contact traced to a kid who had covid, to come out of self-isolation. These had become the events to celebrate very far from the normal social rhythm of the college campus. 

Just being able to be together, knowing that no one was sick was a big deal, worth being excited about. It made me wonder if these friendships would run deeper and stronger than they otherwise would. Maybe that would be the big win for this generation of young people who transitioned into adulthood, independence and life away and apart from their parental homes in the midst of the pandemic. They might come out the other side having a tight-knit community of peers that have a keener appreciation for things that are no longer a given or taken for granted. Maybe the experience will set them up for greater happiness for the rest of their lives. Seen that way, 2020 may not have been such a horrible, terrible, no-good year after all. 

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