I’ve started and stopped this blog several times over the last year trying to summarize the COVID experience, now I’m determined to finish it. The year 2020 was a wild one for sure, but now in the spring of 2021 we seem to be hopefully in the process of a metamorphosis. During this time we’ve been bombarded with COVID-19 news daily, flooded with new illness numbers and statistics. The uncertainty of what was to come and the strong desire for life to return to normal now wafts through the air. The phrase “we’re all in this together” was being used constantly, yet many of us felt all alone, as the weight and severity of our individual situations sat heavily on each of our shoulders, seeming at times impossible to carry any longer…but we kept going. In the beginning of the quarantine lock down, we cut our own hair, made our own masks and grew our own food. To boost morale, we sang together on balconies and played musical instruments across rooftops. While humankind hunkered down indoors, the outside world prospered and healed. Wildlife ventured down main streets in metropolitan areas and blue skies were seen for the first time in a generation in the world’s most polluted cities.
Whether it was work life being disrupted, loss of jobs, businesses being forced to close, unemployment claims, home schooling, zoom calls, remote learning, curb side pickups, and food delivery, we all learned a new way to keep going. If you were holding a video call and the cat jumped on the table, you kept going all the while monitoring your child’s next zoom class starting time and when your groceries were getting delivered. Grabbing a mask on the way out the door with your keys and cell phone is now standard procedure. We wash our hands like surgeons and we socially distance ourselves. We now have working from home as the norm, curbside pickups are available for every retailer and restaurants now all deliver. Waiting in your car for appointments is the new procedure, you get a text when its your turn no matter whether its to the doctor or the barber. We should be proud of ourselves, we kept going, we figured it out, we made it through and we’ve changed for the better, almost like a metamorphosis.
With the help of politicians and scientists coming together vaccine distribution programs have been developed, neighbors are helping neighbors find appointment slots, towns are rallying to support local businesses to fully open back up. We are in the process of becoming something different, something better.
“Sometimes during the harshest conditions, the most beautiful transformations can occur, an evolution out of necessity.”
Think of what a caterpillar has to go through to get its wings to become a butterfly. It has to completely isolate in a cocoon, much like COVID quarantine, then after a lengthy transformation process it has changed into a beautiful creature with wings of freedom. Hopefully, with the vaccines development, we now have our wings of freedom. Even if we’re not fully ready to fly yet, we have developed new methods to cope, to change, to evolve, to continue with life in a new way. We’ve reinvented ourselves, learned new skills and hobbies, developed new ways to work and operate. We’ve shared scientific knowledge and pooled resources to others. We’ve grown wings without even knowing it, we’re butterflies now and we’re beautiful!
Thanks for reading, please join me again next time. Check out my new “All Things Interior Design” podcast, available on all podcast platforms.
Sarah Daricilar, NCIDQ
Studio Owner & Interior Designer
Daricilar Design Studio – Millis, MA