Time has a way of playing tricks with the mind where it distorts events, and you think a week or month passes in the blink of an eye one moment or crawls like a turtle. In what seems like an instant, I have another birthday under Covid coming up when it is inconceivable to me that a year has elapsed. Thinking back on that year, there were so many truly impactful things that happened that it’s hard to believe it was crammed into a single year. In some ways, it was a slow-motion horror movie playing out on television news. In other ways, the weeks passed at blinding speed as the number of Covid hospitalized and dead began to accumulate to unbelievable totals.

In March 2020, we were just learning about Covid coming to our shores. Learning how deadly and virulent it was, and we really didn’t have any idea what to expect. I’m fortunate enough to work for a company that had a plan and, before I knew it, we were all working remotely before the stay-at-home order was issued. I’m also incredibly lucky not to have been personally touched by Covid. Safely secreted away in my apartment, I settled in for what was probably the most tumultuous year in living history.

I could list all the atrocities that took place and the pain inflicted on the American public, but that would be redundant when it is clear that lies were the theme for the previous year. Lies about the dangers of Covid, the racist history of law enforcement, the threat of far-right extremists, and the complicit nature of the Trump administration. Lies that were created as propaganda geared to control the public and preoccupy them with manufactured conflicts that sowed chaos by pitting neighbors against each other.

We should have been united in fighting Covid, but instead, public health tools like masking and social distancing were politicized. We should have all been outraged at the police killings of George Floyd, Jacob Blake, and Breonna Taylor (among many) but the BLM movement was demonized and lumped together with Antifa to scare the public from supporting a movement that benefits everyone. The wildfires that ravaged California should have been a wakeup call to the dangers of climate change, but it became a squabble over who was responsible and lunatic antisemitic conspiracies.

We did one thing correctly and that was to oust Trump from office. But again, lies took center stage as he and his goon squad promoted the Big Lie that the election, with no evidence at all, was stolen. This culminated in the January 6^th insurrection where, for the first time in history, the Capitol building was attacked by American citizens. So, even though there was a decisive electoral college margin and 7 million more people voted for Biden, a lie has motivated people (to this very day) to deny the truth.

The post-Covid world cannot merely return to “normal” if we’re going to move forward as a country. If nothing, we’ve learned that partisan tactics, political extremism, economic inequality, and systemic racism are real problems that we must address and work to eliminate. We cannot turn a blind eye to these issues that were there all along but were too inconvenient to face. Despite over 500,000 dead, which is in the top 10 per capita, we need to realize that the partisan rift only hurts us. We need to work on educating people about what is real, where to get news and facts that are trustworthy, and mostly how to use critical thinking to avoid repeating the mistakes just made.

In returning to some of my pre-Covid activities, the distortion of time hit me as I was forced to actually get dressed to go out. It was one of the few times in the last year where I put on long pants and my wristwatch and it felt strange. The heavy watch face seemed alien as the weight shifted in unfamiliar ways as my arms moved. The pant leg made me think an insect had landed on me as it rubbed against my ankle. It hit me that this is what returning to normal feels like, and it will be strange for everyone. As we slowly reengage with the life we knew from before, we should open our minds to learning from all the things that were done wrong in the past year. We need to understand that history cannot be undone and, in order to affect change, we must move forward with a renewed purpose towards making the world a better place for everyone.