Open Letter: Moving on from COVID One Year Later

I will never trivialize what all off us have been through over the last year. The world is a different place. The COVID 19 pandemic caused the entire world to flop on it's side and somedays it feels like we are still trying to get our feet underneath us in order to get back up.

2021 arrival helped make things feel like they would get better again. The fact that vaccines are arriving everyday allowing more people to have access to them is amazing. And finally, seeing the number of people passing away due to COVID slow in progression with fewer people actually getting sick is really helping a lot of us feel better about tomorrow and the day after. But we still aren't quite there yet.

As we approach the one year anniversary of COVID shutting down New York it struck me that we may never "get over this". I believe we will grow beyond it. I believe we will learn from it. But I don't think we will actually just cast it aside as something we can move on from, a piece will always be with us. It is now woven into our fabric.

Earlier this week I was out on the National Days Calendar site doing my weekly research for articles and that is when I came across National Get Over It Day, which by the way happens to be next Tuesday (March 9th). Since 2005 we have recognized National Get Over It Day thanks to Jeff Goldblatt who established it to get over a bad breakup.

Discovering that there was actually a national day to get over things was not a surprise but the irony that it falls this year on pretty much the anniversary of our world shutting down seemed worth a mention. Here is what I am thinking, we aren't going to get over COVID 19 and the effect it had on the world but maybe we can get over some of the things we have done to get through the past year.

Maybe we can get over the fact that we now wait in line 6 feet apart as a courtesy to other people. Maybe we can get over the fact that wearing a mask is probably going to be around a bit longer. Maybe we can get over our fear of just hanging out with friends again. I could keep going but you get the idea. Let's find the happy and get beyond the frustration. Let's not get over COVID but instead lets put it's negativity in the rearview mirror.