The pandemic feels like it was permanent, I suppose because it was an absolute break: one day we were hugging & kissing & flying to Europe, the next we were housebound. The reopening isn't so dramatic given that it's piecemeal: the dojo is open, with restrictions, then fewer restrictions. The stores & restaurants & theaters & trains likewise. In fact, most parts of our lives are creaking open little by little. There've been permanent changes of course: the many deaths, obviously, but how we interact (elbows over handshakes), what we'll put up with (cf. work-from-home), how we trust or don't trust, more likely, our place in the world. I would like to put it behind me but I also want to remember, though I don't know why ~ really, I want everything sad/difficult to fade to where nothing was as bad as it seemed.
Sigh... I don't know where I'm going with this... it always does seem to come back to memory...