did it change you?

The tide comes in and I can almost taste it — the promise of the vaccine. In our minds, hope is infinite. Everything we lost will be packed into a collective memory of a dark year. Things will be good again, or, at the very least, a version of what was.

That's all fine. We all deserve to gather, to see a smile, to enjoy good health — these are the small comforts of life. I hope, however, that when we do the sorting of what we lost, when normal rears its comforting head, we spit in its face. Normal isn't good enough, not by a long shot.

Did this pandemic change you? For me, it revealed plain as day the cracks in our thinking about health care, work, and community. If we return to normal in the new year, we've failed each other. I understand the temptation. It's been a hard time and any respite will be welcomed with open arms. But once we take that first deep breath, we have to push past the relief and activate our most courageous moral imagination. Dream big, then walk.

Many will conspire to deny us this dreamwalking. The fruits of our imagination will cost them power, control, and money. We must not let them dampen our demands for better with the comfort of normal. This year changed me forever and I will not forget the metamorphosis.