Good Sunday afternoon to you! The weekend found me at my old sunroom desk, enjoying sunshine and the song of birds as they declared their hope and cheer.  I was thinking how it’s been a year since I realized COVID 19 would infiltrate every nook and cranny of this country along with the rest of the world. The Murray Ledger & Times reported last week was the one-year anniversary for the first diagnosed case of the coronavirus in Calloway County. Like everyone else, I am thinking back over the year, weighing the lessons and difficulties we have all faced. Part of me wants to just move on and never look back, with gratitude for the vaccination process and for another decrease in cases. The other part of me actually needs to look back and hope the year counted for something. It’s always best to count our gains – always count your blessings – but somehow acknowledging the losses, the trials we’ve lived through and survived, makes us feel stronger and actually hopeful. Hopeful that ills can be healed, lies can be disproven, and I can get out of my pajamas before noon. (Didn’t want this to get too serious!  It’s a beautiful day.)

Most of us have had plenty of time to ponder plans for this new year, to clean out cabinets and cobwebs, and to just be still without feeling guilty. I’ve gotten really good at that last one. In fact, I may have to put it on my negative list because I am literally afraid I’ll never again be as productive as I was. It’s probably best I’ll never know if it was just my age, or the fault of COVID 19. 

I like seeing some of the “lessons I’ve learned” and “people I admire” lists that came out of the extremely weird year. It wasn’t just the coronavirus. From February tornados to scary diagnoses and odd occurrences, it has been anything but dull since late January 2020. Obviously, there has been true tragedy and deeper grieving for many to endure over the past twelve months; my sympathy to all. For today though, I am thinking of lessons learned over the course of Covid. As I’m in the minority who didn’t deal with home schooling, my woes will be different from yours, and yours different from someone else as well. I’d love to see your lists of 2020 pros and cons. Here are a few of mine.

The first few weeks we were learning to adjust while trying not to feel different; also learning ‘normal’ cannot be overrated. Get up, get dressed, get out; hmmmm, where would we go? OK, get up, get dressed, stay in. Eventually necessity drove us out and I became the designated driver, so to speak, to run the required errands for two households. Noticing all the other helpful hands and wheels enforced my belief that Calloway County is a great place to live – the best! I learned that making 20 or 30 masks for a children’s hospital and for family, was easier than sitting down to make one or two for myself. I discovered keeping spare masks in my purse, glove box, and coat pockets did nothing to prevent my panic each time I almost walked into a store without one.  I learned through YouTube videos that ‘easy’ is a subjective word! No wonder folks were paying six dollars for a fifty cent piece of fabric and elastic! Then proudly displaying them on rearview mirrors.

I also learned: the real important stuff in life I took for granted; like toilet tissue,  hand sanitizer, canning lids and visits from my children. Especially those visits!

I need to spend more money on pjs.

I don’t need to eat breakfast each time I wake up throughout the day. 

I am not the “one-way-arrow-on-Kroger’s-floor” police. 

I have absolutely no barber skills!

 I will never again wonder why a generation turned so violent; have you paid much attention to Gunsmoke? Would a duel between Matt Dillon and Frank Barone be out of line? 

I feel like, for the first time ever, I know our Governor personally. 

I cannot blame a lack of time for unfinished projects; I simply start too many of them. And a fresh coat of paint is a miracle worker.

Online shopping and grocery pickup is addictive.

Good coffee is worth whatever it costs.

Most people are real; real people are good.

Life is too short to be fake.

Some things I missed most: hugs from my great nieces and nephews; hugs at church;  Thursday morning breakfasts out. Bunco.

What I’ve accepted:  I am a home-body; I like it, always did, always will.

Home cooking is worth the trouble and I’m a pretty good cook.

I can’t fix the world’s ills but I can pray for them and crying is good for the soul.

I will never forget: the importance of people to one another. Social distancing has its place, but isolation can be worse than the threat of a virus. 

Even home-bodies love and need phone-friends.

2020 certainly wasn’t perfect, but it may very well have improved our vision!