We realized the Gap Year was coming to an end when we started to feel homesick and could see our funds coming to a head. We had agreed on coming home when our savings reached a certain point and that point was now at the horizon. At this time, covid was still just something called Corona Virus happening in China and we could not have predicted the impact it would have on the world. Turns out, our timing had been kismet.
February of 2019, we headed back to Texas. In the few days leading up to our flight, Scout began running a fever but had no other symptoms. Since Covid was not even a word in our vocabulary yet, I ran down to the pharmacy for some polish kid’s tylenol and prepared for the long flight home. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that, in hindsight, she may have had the virus on that flight home.
Coming home was more than a welcome feeling. Our couch looked like a heavenly cloud after the european futons we’d grown to loathe. And our dog, Winston, was just the welcome committee we needed. Those first few days were spent getting settled and figuring out our next steps: jobs. I decided to go into business for myself and Frankie got his old job back. Things were feeling new and old at the same time.
Then, murmurs of the virus started to bubble up. Scout’s school in Poland sent out emails warning of this new deadly virus. They had asked that anyone that had traveled to Italy not come into the school. I remember thinking how lucky we were to be back home! We had come back JUST. IN. TIME.
It was only a few weeks later that America shut down. We all know the rest.
Over the next year, I couldn’t help but draw parallels between what everyone was feeling during Covid and what we had just experienced on our Gap Year. In 2019, I had had my eyes opened to an all new perspective. One that I couldn’t unsee. All of a sudden, it was so clear to us that the traditional American life wasn’t the only option. It actually wasn’t even the best option! We learned that experiences were worth more than things and that freedom of time is more important than working. We learned that what we had been doing up until that point was what we were trained to do and not what fulfilled us. We also learned how to be isolated, together, as a family and how to navigate stressful situations. We had trained our entire Gap Year for exactly what 2020 had to offer.
Then, as Covid dragged on, I started to see all of my friends and clients wake up to this same realization. Working from home allowed people to remove their blinders and see just how much time was being stolen from their personal lives. It was amazing to feel the people around me take off the same out-dated lenses that I’d shed just a year before. We were all seeing the world in an entirely new way.
Covid was, and still is, a horrible and tragic phenomenon. But I am amazed by this transformation I’m witnessing in priorities. Of course, there are things that anger me. Anti-Vax/Anti-mask sentiment is maddening and, in my opinion, ignorant. However, when I get worked up about what’s wrong with the people amongst me, I am quickly reminded by what’s awesome amongst me: “Anti-go back to how we did it before-ness “
