If today’s column is way more self-absorbed than usual, blame COVID. No, I’m not sick again, but I keep thinking back to four years ago this month, when The Plague Of The Ages forced us to address big existential questions: Will I die? Are my loved ones safe? Do we have any toilet paper?
I promise you might learn something from our self-absorbed three-ply, even if you’re the one doing the hard work. Consider these four questions:
How are you better off than you were four years ago?
When my monthly generations column came out four years ago this week in the Chronicle, it had nothing to do with COVID. It simply offered five questions to ask people from other generations, hoping to get past small talk.
But the specter of COVID was already there, hand in hand with humanity’s greatest fear: the unknown. The main things we knew were that it was killing older people in droves — it was already nicknamed “Boomer Remover” — and there was no cure.
I realize this is incredibly narcissistic and morbid and paranoid, but at least give me points for honesty: I kept thinking, “What if this is the last thing I ever write?” I wanted it to mean something, at least to me.
Given newspaper deadlines, I was probably in the soul-searching express lane, but I wrote about how I met Cathy and about the trip that changed my life, then ended with this next segment. It’s a hill I would proudly die on.
Well, Tiny Tim, since you did not die, what did you learn? I’ll make it easy for you: Who do you love now that you didn’t love before COVID?
In four years, my loosely defined family has added children and grandchildren and spouses and fiancés and others of significance. Oh, and pets. Lots of pets.
I haven’t added any of those things, but I’ve shared in the joy and grown closer to several friends. Maybe you have, too.
Maybe you became less obsessive about work, more patient about petty annoyances, more empathetic about how others might be struggling. Maybe you tip more generously or smile at strangers more often or forgive more quickly.
Maybe you’re just more thankful to be alive.
There’s a line from “Jurassic Park” that I’ll steal and take horribly out of context: “Life finds a way.” Have you found yours?
What have you gained from your losses?
As far as I know, the only acquaintance I lost from COVID was the mother of a friend. A lot more died from The Grim Reaper’s Greatest Hits: heart disease and cancer. I lost a few others who moved away, physically or emotionally.
I’ve gotten off easy. Lots of people lost loved ones or jobs, or skipped rites of passage that can never be replaced. Even if all you lost was a favorite hangout, that can mess with your psyche. I’m certainly not trying to minimize any of that, especially if you lost someone close, for any reason.
But maybe the whole mess made you stronger. Maybe you found out that lots of people share your anxieties. Maybe now you go out of your way to visit with friends, even if it’s just a text or email.
Maybe all those months of being alone made you feel less alone.
If you lost your job or your company collapsed, maybe it forced you to rethink your life. Maybe you ended up being able to work remotely or learned a skill — even if it was survival. Whether they’re in a real-world division of Google or the fictional world of “WKRP in Cincinnati,” losses sometimes pave the way for successes. Did that happen with you? Can it?
My next Generations column in 2020 mentioned a 1979 conversation with Jackie Speier, who was shot five times in the Jonestown massacre in Guyana. Our interview stayed with me 41 years later because she had an epiphany: She needed to ease up on her late-20s treadmill and embrace life more.
Even in tragedy, sometimes you find moments of beauty. You just have to look. They won’t balance out all that went wrong, but they’ll help you carry on.
Are you ready for the next Big One?
The next month I wrote about the challenges of connecting with people when you had to (understandably) wear a mask and rarely hugged or even touched. I liked one idea so much — sharing a song that mattered to you, and why — that I ended up doing a whole column on it a few months later. It couldn’t take the place of a few hugs, but it helped.
If you’ve learned anything from this whole mess, you’re at least saving a few heavy duty masks for a plaguey day, along with some hand sanitizer. And maybe you’ve become more savvy about not believing everything you read in the media, traditional or social. Check your sources. Twice.
Maybe you’ve also found necessities for survival, like storable food and a president smarter than Forrest Trump.
A New York Times newsletter this week said that about one-third of self-identified Republicans haven’t gotten a COVID vaccine, compared with less than 10% of Democrats. Stupid is as stupid does.
Don’t ignore the less obvious stuff, either. If you haven’t bothered learning Zoom or FaceTime, maybe take a stab at it before the next Big One. Because there’s always the chance that your biggest threat might not be some deadly virus, but loneliness.
Did you forgive anyone — including yourself?
By the time I retired in January 2021, the first vaccines had come out. My last column was mostly about the circle of life, but ended by revisiting the “Do you love anyone …” question, stressing the importance of reaching out, quoting a lyric from a duet by estranged lovers: “If the world was ending, you’d come over, right?”
All that alone time from COVID gave us time to think about making peace — with relatives, with friends, with our demons. Maybe we had an epiphany or two.
The year after Speier had hers, a duet called “Should’ve Never Let You Go” came out. It was about a breakup, too, but since it was sung by Neil Sedaka and his daughter, we’re going to take a little license and apply it to any estranged relationship.
When you walk into a room,
You know I stand on shaky ground.
I've built so many walls around me,
Now the walls are tumbling down.
You're the kind I can’t forget,
Let the tears begin to flow.
I have only one regret,
I should have never let you go.
Even though our narcissistic and morbid and paranoid four years seemed to have lasted way too long, they also reminded us that life is way too short. Savor it.
Murphy Slaw
Something old: If you thought Lily Gladstone or Greta Gerwig or whoever else got robbed at this year’s Oscars, they have lots of company from throughout history. This New York Times story features 25 other times when people got snubbed, at least according to Times staffers.
Something new: Stanford University researchers have found a possible connection between long COVID and the severity of people’s hangovers.
Something borrowed: Maybe this will remind you that sometimes you’re seeing things through a distorted perspective. Added detail, a la Google: Russia has 6.6 million square miles, Africa 11.7 million.
Something blue: Well, blue and a rainbow of other colors if you want to be precise. A survey has found that the portion of U.S. adults identifying as LGBTQ has more than doubled in the last 12 years, with 7.6% now identifying as something other that heterosexual.
Great thoughts, Dave.