I miss…being me. 

Somehow, in the past two years, while dealing with the virus pandemic and its continuing aftermath, I’ve lost my edge, whatever that was. 

Who hasn’t? 

Okay, okay, not everyone feels like me but, I’ll bet that if you dig down, deep inside, not everything about the image looking back at you in the mirror is the same. Yes, we’re all older, not necessarily wiser, but damn road-weary of the tumultuous ride life’s taken us on since 2020. 

As much as I enjoy getting out, either to work on my still-limited schedule or just to be part of the mostly unmasked civilization in the stores or restaurants…I’m happier to return home and jump into my pandemic loungewear. Think about it. In some ways, we’ve made it through what I call the “virus gauntlet”, even though the variants continue to threaten everyone. But, either through the vaccination process, or the benefit of any natural immunity incurred from getting Covid or one of its offsprings, we’ve become a lot more resilient and less impacted by all the previous virus hysteria of the past two years.

But just as we were all ready to pick up life’s virus-shattered pieces, along comes a political/financial type of influenza…full-blown inflation and skyrocketing gas prices which our fearless leader attributes to the Russian assault on Ukraine.  C’mon man!! I won’t go into some exhaustive diatribe on this issue even though my inner, sarcastic, child is throwing a tantrum in my head. That…is a rant for another day. Sadly, more and more of such days are heading our way. 

I long to get back to the me who embraced each new day and whatever it brought my way. I laughed more and enjoyed life’s simple pleasures. Maybe I took too much for granted, maybe I ignored mortality staring back at me in the mirror, like it does now. For all of us. 

I miss the me who didn’t give a rat’s ass about matters out of my control. I miss the me who can usually rise to most occasions and take charge. And some people in my life have chosen to be distant, for a myriad of reasons, both personal and likely political, I miss the interactions with them. The current state of our world and its issues has brought so much divisiveness between us all. We need to realize that life is just too damn short to spend time hiding in some corner of our existence on this angry planet.