Living in the In-Between Times...
4/12/2020
This year has passed in a blur, almost one-third of it gone already, in what seems like the blink of an eye. I didn't put up much work this year. My last post here was in November of last year... Busy with home-schooling and taking care of my boys, I didn't prioritize photo editing, and the images that I'd been taking just built up and built up on my computer, and then, wham, society as we knew it shut down. Coronavirus life changes happened abruptly, and for the last three weeks (at least), I've left my home hardly at all, just for groceries, and I've suddenly found I have more time than I thought. All the days have begun to blur together. I feel very fortunate to have access to the outdoors via my front and back yards and, boy, have we really taken advantage of all our time at home and have been working on the yards almost every day! There is a very distinct line of 'Before' and 'After,' at least in my mind, though that line gets wider and blurs every day, and we are living in the in-between times. Not like before, and not like the 'after' - whenever that distinction of time may begin. I know that our future will look different because of all of this, but I guess I never knew what the future was going to look like, anyway. No one really does. This is not what I'd imagined, though, for myself, and especially not for my children. Video play-dates and school meetings are the norm now, dragging the laptop or phone around to show off various accomplishments throughout the house, never touching each other, separated by screens. I'm glad for the connections we do have, with technology. I'd miss my family and friends that much more if we didn't have that option of communication, but it doesn't take the place of a good hug. Not by a long shot. I continue to have hopes for the future, but some days are darker than others. We see the military planes flying in, bringing equipment, flying low over our back yard. I've tried not to read the news (more than once a day... okay, more than three times a day, some days), or keep logging in to see the infection and death count, but there is this strange electric excitement, like driving by a bad accident and everyone's looking, hoping not to see anything gory, but sort of hoping to see something, too. I don't know what I'm expecting. I'm trying to stay sane, trying to stay positive, and staying home. For now. Until this in-between time is over.
I don't know where the 'after' starts, but there is a clear distinction of when the 'before' was, like these images below, some of the last I'd edited, when we could go out to restaurants, museums. So strange, this world we are currently in, where I have to work up the courage to go out to the grocery store. I realize I took so much for granted before.