According to Healthline.com, “it can take anywhere from 18 to 254 days for a person to form a new habit and an average of 66 days for a new behavior to become automatic.” So, our lives have, to a very real extent, become normalized. I’ve got to tell you, I’m not unhappy.
We’ve been lucky enough to have jobs that were not disrupted or quashed by economic pressures – we’ve stayed employed. First and foremost, we have our fiscal security. And we’ve done our part in keeping the economy churning. Packages arrive daily with everything from cleaning supplies, dog toys, gardening tools, and bird feeders, to office supplies, t-shirts, socks, shoes, and OTC medication. And the list goes on. We buy local as often as we can. We order food from local restaurants.
I have to say the pandemic year came to us at the right time. We were looking toward to our retirement in the next couple of years with excited trepidation. We were worried about money. But more importantly about whether we could be together so much. This past year has taught us how to live together but the importance of still having our own lives. We’ve spent a year planning a lot of things not for when things get back to normal, but for when things change again.
We are grateful. We understand our blessings – our hard work and our good luck. But the year has also given us the time and focus to begin to understand our lives are shaped more by our privilege than anything else. It’s been a devastating year for people of color and we’re just beginning to scratch the surface of what it’s like to be Black in America…or Latino…or Asian…or Native American…
This past year began an awakening. Breonna Taylor. George Floyd. Ahmaud Arbery. Adam Toledo. Vicha Ratanapakdee. Christian Cooper.