Helluva post title, huh?
But really…I am. And no, it’s not because I’ve just read the latest Stephen King novel.
2020 has been as close to apocalyptic as any year in my lifetime of 60 years on this earth.
This is not the country I wanted to leave for my daughter when I envisioned what her world would look like.
The thing that terrifies me the most is when we got back to what most of us would consider normal :being about to hug one another, not wearing face masks, eating inside a restaurant again, attending an actual school and not a computer classroom, many of the things we’d learned and practiced for a lifetime will be gone.
I’m talking about manners and life skills.
Holding the door if you proceed someone through it. Saying “God Bless you” if someone sneezes ( into the elbow region!!) Letting another person finish speaking and not interrupting. Saying a simple please and thank you. Smiling. Sharing ( not hoarding). Looking out for one another. Not yelling to make your point. Helping elderly people or anyone who needs it, be it a physical ailment or disability. Going to church. Respecting one another.
We’ve been isolated, quarantined, and removed from one another due to this pandemic. Well, most of us have. There are those idiots out there…but that is for another blog. Many of us have worked from home and don’t even get dressed from the waist down ( or up, for that matter) when attending internet meetings or classes.
I’m terrified we’ve lost…us. Our love for one another. Our respect. Our beliefs and practices. Our knowledge of right and wrong. Our basic social skills.
I’m terrified we’ve turned into an narcissistic, whining, confrontational, and spoiled bunch of brats who only worry about our own lives, our own finances, our own little space in the world.
What effect is this all going to have on our children? What kind of world are they going to be subjected to when the world turns right side up again – if it turns right side up again.
Maybe you think I’m being dramatic. I dare say I may be. But I know I’m not the only one worried about the present state of our world and what 2021 and beyond is going to look like for our children, ourselves, and our planet.
As for me, well, I’m going to remember my social skills. Even when I am in a store today, masked, and hand-sanitized, I still hold the door for others. Many don’t say thank you or even acknowledge my action with an eye flick, but I still do it. I say please and thank you – I think now more than I ever did before. I certainly say I love you a lot more to the people I do love. A whole lot more. Who knows if this may be the last time I get to say it…show it.
I’m determined to remember who I am – and was before the world turned upside down – and take that into the future with me. It’s really the only way I can keep my terror of what’s to come contained.
Just sayin…
Peggy Jaeger, Author 