For the last 655 days, I’ve refrained from talking about the virus and it’s impact on not only my life, but the world I live in. For those who don’t know, I moved to Tokyo in January 2020, mere weeks before the pandemic struck.
Like most terrible things in life, there was no warning, no sign or premonition. It just sort of happened. And, like the rest of humanity, I just had to deal with that.
In the beginning, we all hoped it would just go away. But it didn’t. Then we hoped we could kill it by restricting our interactions with other humans. But it didn’t. Then we waited for a cure. Months passed. I moved. Sakura fell off trees. Work was my escape. Many of my peers too. We would just roll out of bed, over to our desks, signing into Slack; remotely working.
But eventually, the cure came, and the last two months of waiting for my turn was like the tiredness that hits before you cross the finish line. But I crossed it, and now the world has moved on.
Here in Japan, at the time of writing, we’re at over 74.4% vaccination rate (two shots), and the world has practically returned to normal here. It’s like the last two years just didn’t happen.
But hey, I still remember it, right?