On the Tuesday after the Big Sunday, I had my hair cut (salon artist and I both wore masks) and then went on to pick up my dry cleaning (still wearing a mask, but endured a not-very-brief lecture on why the proprietor was not.) All in all, it was same old. It really didn’t feel all that different. That being said, I did not go to a rock concert.

Rather more exciting were the three rapid-succession social events planned and performed after I, my husband, all my friends and my family members were two weeks out from suffering through our second vaccinations.

We had a barbecue at my brother’s place. A certain younger human in my life had grown a foot since I’d seen him last. Insert weeping over a lost 16 months here.

I went for lunch with two friends I hadn’t seen in at least a year. They looked very much as they had 12 months ago; at least I recognized them in the parking lot.

We had dinner with out-of-town friends in a RESTAURANT. All five of us. Together. At one table. Amazing.

Call us paranoid, but my circle adhered to COVID-induced restrictions to the letter, and then some. It worked, for the most part. None of us got sick. There were parents to protect, livelihoods to consider, employees to provide work for, and illness and death to avoid. Some things really are important.

But speaking of paranoid, I was very worried about freezing in place when I stepped back into the social realm. Anxiety about returning to in-person human interaction hit me like a brick when our premier decided to reopen the province. How does one behave in public, again?

Conduct a conversation? Does one hug or does one not?

When I encountered the first greatly-missed human I’d clapped eyes on after vaccine No. 2, I did actually sort of freeze. For a second. Then I melted at the sight of his face and flung my arms around him. I would say I didn’t realize just how much I’d missed him until confronted with his actual self. And I behaved well, all things considered. I didn’t use any swear words, which will pop out of my mouth from time to time, near tender ears; and tried not to be a pedantic pain in the backside (with less success.)

I am apparently not alone. Reopening social anxiety is a thing. Maybe even a big thing. I would say rightly so. We’ve been variously working from home, meeting by Zoom, hiding in front of the TV at night and leaving the house only for necessities for a very long time. Getting jumpy about interacting with others is reasonable. We haven’t stretched those muscles for a long time.

Yet I feel we’re sort of slipping back into our old normal with more of a whimper than a bang, unless of course you’re a restaurateur or perhaps hotel operator. It has to be overwhelmingly wonderful to see people come through the doors again — assuming you’ve been able to find the staff to greet those customers.

I wonder what we’ve collectively and personally learned during the pandemic restriction period, if anything. Perhaps how to protect ourselves a little better? This wasn’t the first pandemic and it won’t be the last. Next time, I’m breaking out the mask pronto. Possibly how to be kinder to each other? I’ve seen that, but I’ve also seen the opposite. One thing is for sure: I profoundly hope our governments and health authorities have learned a thing or two about being prepared.

And I do worry about the reopening. Is it going to be okay? Is it too soon? Will the Delta variant be our undoing? I think we just might make it, but only because of a reasonable level of vaccination. But if we have to lock down again, it will be because things have gone off the rails, which means another big bad bang to our economy and sense of safety. I expect there will be significant whimpering as well.

However we approach this hopefully cautious reopening, I think we should keep in mind that while we have largely disabled the monster’s wildly slapping, indiscriminate and pointy tail, it still has sharp teeth. It could bare them at any time. Let’s continue to file them down.

-Joanne Paulson