What a difference a year makes, 8760 little hours…An old song popped into my head with today’s prompt. You might say, ‘What difference does it make.’ I would answer ‘ it has made a big difference and you have to be brain dead not to notice that.’ It feels like the year has not ended but become a kind of mega year, a year plus. We are still in the middle of the plague in many places. But you know that don’t you, if you read or watch any of the news, and you don’t like me bringing it up again. You want me to talk happy talk. Get on a different subject. I can’t let it go yet because it has not let go yet. So I still write about it. So there.

I consider myself pretty lucky in that I did not get sick, I can shelter in a nice place, my husband, kids and grandson did not get it, I have enough money, not rich but enough, we have had our vaccines. It has come close to me though. I lost a brother and the older brother and sister-in-law caught it. My older brother survived but does have after effects. I did not want to take him for granted before and now even more so.

We start to consider how our lives will be different here as restrictions are to be lifted on June 15. Health officials are still very concerned that we are at risk from the variants. But we start to allow ourselves to think about the new normal. A glimpse of light peaking over the horizon. David L. Ulin wrote a post in the LA Times ‘Not quite ready to reopen.’ He discusses the changes in his life brought on by the pandemic may become permanent. ‘As I receive more messages about reconnecting, I want to think about how I choose to spend my time. Among the benefits of lockdown is how it strips away obligatory get-togethers. This meeting or that cup of coffee, the dinner I had no desire to attend. I want to reemerge on my terms, to preserve the smallness, the intimacy, of my pandemic isolation. I want to preserve the space I’ve created for myself. A simpler life, if I can keep it that way…I want to move at my own pace, to be conscious about how and when I reintegrate.’

I too feel that I have not missed a lot of what I have given up. I have thought about what my life will be like going forward. I feel the need to create something new, something different.

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Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SOCS, is hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt for today is ‘difference.’

My beginning sentence is a take off on old song lyrics from ‘What a difference a day makes,’ by Maria Grever. Below version shared on YouTube by phalenopsis1.