Image: Curiosity of Upsplash
Closed shopping centers, empty parks and pick up orders have become the new normal. In such little time, we never knew how much could be lost in our lives. Walking down a crowded street seeing a friend and giving them a hug. Being shoulder to shoulder with strangers in a baseball stadium and hearing the echo of voices as they cheer for a homerun. Laying in a soft-cushion, reclining chair at a crowded movie theatre with hot-buttered popcorn on your knees. Jumping into a full cannonball into the deep end of a public pool. Life is now lived in the confounds of our houses, where sleeping and watching Netflix has become our new choice of entertainment and it loses its spark, after a few weeks. Streaming services, Instagram live, Tick-Tock, and not being able to tell the days of the week apart has become for so many of us, daily life. Don’t be fooled, this is nothing close to a vacation.
Medical workers, supermarket employees, truck drivers and janitors are heroes risking their lives for the safety of others. These are the people risking their lives every day to keep society afloat not working from home. In all honesty, no one is working from home in the true sense of the term. They are being forced to work through a pandemic from there houses because they have no other choice. Parents are hushing their kids, while trying to keep a professional image during conference calls on Zoom. Some are scrambling to find ways to function working along with making sure they’re children are being virtually educated. Unfortunately, those are the lucky people. According to the Washington Post, over 22 million people have applied for unemployment. The gripping anxiety of attempting to pay bills, mortgages, rent and buying food without knowing where the money is coming from is nearly, unbearable.
The level of uncertainty rocking the lives of people around the world is spreading like a wildfire into the stock market, making it highly unstable. Teens in high school are missing out on the milestone moments in their lives. New beautiful prom dresses and tuxedoes hang in protective plastic in closets. Dreams of walking across the stage in front of a crowd of friends and proud parents has become a broken promise. The once crowded dorms filled with youth and life are now empty. College students lost the experience of living in a dorm and establishing independence on their own for the first time. Now collectively people are longing for the things once taken for granted. There will be some social changes that will remain permanent after this crisis comes to a halt. How will the language of touch and communication be changed? Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) has questioned if shaking hands will still be necessary.
“I don’t think we should ever shake hands ever again, to be honest with you” Fauci told the Washington Post podcast.
Perhaps, after a level of normalcy is established people will become more aware of non-verbal communication and avoidant of physical exchanges. “…. Perhaps another type of intimacy, like more eye contact and more substantive verbal exchanges, will emerge. Maybe we’ll evolve into other [forms] of touching.” Tiffany Field, director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine told the Los Angeles Times.
There is no telling if we will shake hands, high five or greet each other with warm hugs. The mystery will remain until the future is the present. Sometimes change isn’t better or worse. It’s simply a brand-new way of viewing and experiencing the world. Now, as a society we know how unpredictable life can be and how quickly everything can transform from comfortable and familiar to a civilization never seen in modern times. A refreshed perspective and a new sense of hope may lead society to find a way to put the broken puzzle pieces back together. Once those tiny pieces are in its rightful place, the world will begin again with appreciation for the beauty of being outside and a sense of gratitude of community.