By: Liz Queen
What if this pandemic really doesn’t change us?
What if families spending more time together was just like a brief family reunion, and when it’s over we all hug and go on with our lives?
What if all the time we thought we’d like to have for our own companionship just gave way to an abyss of introspective loneliness?
What if spending more time together with our partner reminded us why we’d drifted toward spending less time together?
What if working from home made us yearn for the socialization provided even by an anti-social workspace?
What if the intention to cook and consume more nutritional food just gave way to the addiction of stress binging?
What if all our drawers and closets got more full and not cleaned and organized because of all our in-seclusion home shopping?
What if the initial elation and novelty of an endless stream of streaming videos just left us overwhelmed and overconnected and wanting to mute and disconnect them all?
What if checking in on each other gave way to checking out on each other as our unity gave way to enmity and disagreement and divisiveness? What if our profanity outscreamed our humanity?
What if more time for prayer and meditation made us think too much about our flaws, which made us acknowledge that we really don’t want to try to change them?
What if instead of rising to the occasion and maintaining our buoyancy, we all just reverted to type after a hopeful start? And what if we’ve just remained the virtual versions of who we always were?
What if at if all this has merely just changed the nature of the question from “So what if?” to merely “So what?”