Pandemic Journal Entry - 4/17/22

Here was my entry for this week for UCONN’s Pandemic Journal Project.  You can find the homepage for the project here: https://pandemic-journaling-project.chip.uconn.edu/

Question: How has the coronavirus pandemic affected your life in the past week? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

Last week I continued to move forward my travel plans for this year.  I am hoping to build on the breakthrough year I had last year, when I finally got to go places for the first time since Covid.  I continue to book rooms and schedule flights for a variety of trips, to go to baseball games with one of my nephews, visit the family over the Fourth of July weekend, attend a science fiction convention that I used to go to every single year, but which I haven’t been to since 2018 (first due to work, then because of Covid).  

But international travel is still on hold, at least to my preferred destinations.  The trip I planned in 2020, which was cancelled due to the virus, included going to see a baseball game in the one remaining baseball stadium in Japan I haven’t visited yet, in Chiba, Japan, next to Tokyo.  It also included going on a side excursion to visit Busan, South Korea.  

I finally got a credit voucher from the airlines for that flight, after rescheduling it again and again, pushing it as far out as I could in the hopes that, “by then,” I’d be able to rebook a flight taking me to either or both of those countries.  

Last week, while I was submitting dates to get PTO days at work, I checked the travel status for Japan and South Korea, something I do just about every other week or so.  Both are still listed as Level 4 - Do Not Travel.  The feeling that I’ll have to push that trip back another year is starting to grow inside me again.  

Last night, I went to see a play at a theater run by a couple that are friends and former colleagues of mine.  It was the first live performance they’ve staged at the theater since the initial quarantine orders in the state.  When I arrived, I was surprised to see everyone was wearing a mask.  Both the state and the county have lifted mask mandates for some time now.  Fortunately, I had one of my mask sets (A cloth outer mask, and a surgical procedure inner mask, with a little plastic from or support to go over my nose) and I put it on to be in compliance with their request.  Because the theater is so small, and the performers were not masked, they felt it was an appropriate action to take.  

While catching up with my friends, I found out that another member of our group is still quarantined in his house.  This is because of a form of blood cancer he has being controlled by medication.  I knew about his condition, he has been under treatment for years before Covid, but I had wondered/hoped he might be there at the showing as well.  I wondered when he’ll be able to go to the theater like I know he wants to. 

The situation made me think that I should always go out with masks with me.  That it would be the right thing to do to be ready if I go someplace where others would feel more comfortable if I had one on.  One of the changes that have taken place.  Because of the virus.  

Ironically, the play, which my friends had commissioned and started working on a year or so before Covid, was about people being isolated during a crisis (set during World War 2, when Children were evacuated to the countryside because of the bombings).  I enjoyed the presentation, but it was a reminder about how the same issues can keep coming back around in different forms. 

Question: Some people have said that the pandemic has changed them, or led to changes in their values or even their personalities.  Do you think you’ve changed as a result of the pandemic?  If so, how?

I think living through the pandemic has changed me (how could it not?), but I’m still wondering in what way and to what degree.  

I find myself to be more introspective in one sense.  I find myself questioning my reasons for how I react to things, such as an angry outburst when I realize I forgot to do something, or forgot to bring something I needed when I leave home during the day.  I have spent more time writing in journal about what I want out of life, and why.  I have spent more time writing out affirmations to try and lead myself in those directions I want to go, or imaging the type of person I want to be.  

Or my reaction when I encounter people on the street.  Why am I feeling leery?  What do I find so fascinating about that person?  Part of that might come from how I don’t take meeting people for granted as much as I did before.  It used to feel like there was a sea of people I was swimming through when I left my home, and I would take note of them in a half-conscious sort of way.  Now I focus in on others more, wondering what they think, why they do what they do, and what situation they came from?  I’ve thought of myself as someone that has had a fascination for people for most of my life.  I don’t think this is a change, though it feels different to me.  A specificity in how I look at them, and how they react to me and my presence.  Wondering if I make them nervous, or afraid, by how I carry myself.  

I’m not sure.  But after Covid, I think I think more about why people do what they do, how they are who they are, both for myself and others.