March 17th - A Year

A year ago, I went to a 15-person gathering for St Patrick’s Day. And I felt weird about it, but not weird enough not to go. It was all close-ish friends, we stayed outside for the entire time, and most of them worked in the world of medicine (I have a lot of friends working at and attending CU’s medical school), which made me feel safer about the decision. If they felt okay with it, I could also feel okay with it.

Today, I’m spending St Patrick’s Day with my boyfriend and my dog. I would love to be at my friend’s house, surrounded by humans, playing flip cup with green beer, but (fortunately and unfortunately) we’ve learned a lot in the last 365 days.

While I often harp on the negatives, there have been some positives that have come out of the last year.

I woke up feeling very odd from a dream I’d had. I don’t usually remember dreams - I definitely have them, but I wake up and whoosh, they’re gone. This one stuck, though. I won’t go into details, but it was about a friend using me when she needed. The weird thing, though? I didn’t wake up feeling horrible. I woke up with a strange sense of peace.

It sounds really, really sappy… But it’s been a year of figuring out who your people are. My people and I have been making it work. Through Valentine’s Day cards and phone calls and through sending small trinkets of appreciation. Through virtual hugs and hype-texts and through doing our best to stay in-the-know about each other’s lives even though we aren’t physically together right now. In the last year, I haven’t felt used and I haven’t felt as though I’m using people. It’s relaxing to know who your people are.

There are so many other positive pandemic points to make, but instead of making this post a novel, I’ll save some more for another day.