What will life look like after the coronavirus? Will things ever return to normal? 6 months from now, will things actually change? In the spring, I made a lot of decisions assuming that the virus would be gone by the end of the summer. Now that we're into the fall and there's no sign it's slowing down, I need to adjust my thinking.
At the same time, I feel so used to the virus and social distancing, that sometimes when I see a picture or video pre-pandemic of people close together, I do a double take. "That's not allowed!"
I think it's natural to assume that in 6 months, a year or even 5 years, your life will look so much different. At the beginning of high school, I remember thinking about what kind of person I'd be at the end of those 4 years. I thought I'd be a completely different person. To that end, I definitely learned a lot about myself and the world in high school, but my life is a lot of the same: mostly the same interests, motivations, friends, opinions.
I relate a lot of things back to running. During a workout, when I would finish the last rep and I was dying to catch my breath, I'd think over and over to myself "it's over, it's over, it's over." In that moment, it was hard to imagine not being breathless. The reps just kept coming. I couldn't believe that was the last one. It made me happy and proud that I finished the challenging run. I'm hoping that moment for the virus will come soon, but it's not likely.