TWO Years
Where were you two years ago?
Do you remember what you were doing?
I happen to remember the day, March 20, 2020 very clearly. It was Friday. The evening before on March 19, Gov. Newsom issued an order for all Californians to stay home to “protect the health and well-being.” My husband and I had been in a process of moving out of the condo we were renting as the landlady had given us an eviction notice for the reason of her moving into the unit. We were also in a process of looking for a place to move to and not having much luck. By then we had moved a good chunk of our belongings to our weekend home in the mountains, and on that Friday it became apparent to us that moving everything to our mountain house at that point made the most sense. A maintenance man who was working at the building we were moving out of happened to see both us moving boxes out and ended up offering to help us move. The rest is history, as they say.
The two years since then have turned out to be rather dramatic for my life. Obviously everybody will always remember these last two years regardless of what was going on in life, and I’m sure for some people it may be painful to remember. Last night I was browsing my photos on my computer from the last two years reminiscing all the events that ensued in this period.
I must say the last two years of my life was such a mixed bag of joy, sorrow, frustration, excitement and all the shades of sentiments in between. The staying home turned out to be a huge blessing as I got to be with my kitty as she declined and eventually passed away; It also pushed me to focus a lot on building my green real estate business; I bonded with a couple of friends in the neighborhood who became my “mountain sisters”; I had a 60th birthday and got to have a big Zoom party, which allowed many people across the country to attend; then the news about my mother’s eminent transition got me on a whole complicated journey to Japan in the middle of the state of emergency in the country. I will for sure remember these two years, and I will cherish all the memories for the rest of my life, even the ones that bring tears to my eyes. And of course many good things have happened that are now energizing me as well that I get to be so grateful for.
The world is a different place in many ways today because of the pandemic that we just went through. Even though today we see so much suffering — heartbreaking suffering, I would like to believe that somehow the world is more interconnected in a way that can help us to be more conscious of how precious our lives are and there are so many opportunities for healing. Am I dreaming? I hope not….