I know. One cannot start a story “During the pandemic…” because one of us always has to raise a well-now finger and say “Well, now… the pandemic is STILL ongoing…” and we will know they will be right so we will say “Well, yes, of course, the pandemic IS still ongoing, but I meant during the lockdown, we…” and then we lose our thread while we get lost in thoughts about whether our lockdown was the same as their lockdown, and who was locked the downest, and how quietly, and for how long, and how that felt, and who got the most despondent, and who cried the most often and who wondered what they’d been doing with their life and whether it’s ok to ask if they’ve worked it out since…

…since…

…or still? During? Because well now, the pandemic is ongoing… And well yes, of course, it IS still ongoing but…

I am aware of how much things shifted, socially, personally, culturally, in the last few years.

Ironically, I know — I knew at the time — that it was perfect blogging fodder. It should have been. But the fact is, in the days and weeks and months and hours and nights and eons of 2020, it would have helped me to write all the feelings down, and out, and away… but doing so would have meant admitting a) that it was happening, but b) that I knew somehow that it was temporary and therefore worth writing about… and not just v) a new normal, the life that life was, is now. Indoors. With only these people.

And we didn’t know what of that was true.

We still don’t.

But I am just putting gentle pressure on this door because I know I want to tell the stories of how we changed, how I changed, during that time (this time? Gah!) and I needed to do that, at some point, without a whole bunch of throat-clearing in the posts themselves. So this is a post of throat clearing, instead.

I just want to be able to talk about it.