Slow down! The street outside my window, so quiet for the past 14 months, hums with passing cars and clonks with trucks as they hit the uneven patch of macadam. I asked Hub if he missed the quiet streets of the pandemic. I sure do!
Our families and friends are all catching up with the celebrations they postponed, the visits they longed to make. They dragged their luggage - cases, backpacks, totes and duffel bags - out of storage. They are On The Road Again!
Meanwhile, daily life does not slow down. Workers are back in the office or the stores or the factories. Some of those workers never stopped working. Now, they welcome their far-flung families into their homes. Their joy knows no bounds. Then, the guests go home and the workers can't afford to take time off to recuperate.
I spoke to one person who will play host to a niece and her brood this weekend. She already has her three grown children at home, as well as her retired husband. She sounded sooooo tired. I bet she visits her luggage longingly.
I know I miss quarantine. I AM grateful that I can go to the stores. Delivery services saved us for the past year. BUT I have an overflowing box of items that I could not return - because I wasn't going into stores - but that were NOT what I requested.
I miss the quiet nights of quarantine. I resent the pressure to DO things. During quarantine we could stay home alone with little or no guilt. I LOVE spending times with my family and friends but...
Could we do it slowly? Please?
Karen, I love what you wrote here. Just yesterday I was saying how people move to fast...everywhere in cars, on sidewalks, in malls (I avoid malls like the plague BTW, I just know they move too fast in there :) I also said how I have always moved slowly through life and been chastised for it. I still have a journal where at 15 I wrote about feeling like I didn't belong because all my friends always had to be DOing something. I just wanted to "hang out." I wish you could come here sometime. There is woods on 3 sides, a fairly quiet road, and mostly the sounds of birds. It's my haven where I most easily find my peace and I love to share it with friends on occasion! Once the new house is in place, my suitcase will get even more dusty!
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