It’s Been Four Years. Who Are We Now? – Charlotte Magazine

Would we recognize the people we were before March 2020? Do we recognize ourselves now?

What do our lives look like? What might they have been without the virus? Can you measure the difference? Should you try? They’re difficult questions with as many answers as people on Earth. We don’t have that kind of room.

But we asked four of Charlotte’s best writers to reflect on the pandemic and how it changed them. In their stories, you may find traces of yours.

In February of 2020, just over a month before my ordinary life transformed, I began a journey with grief. As I walked a wooded trail draped in near-silence, a breeze shifted the branches, occasionally loosening a leftover leaf from its home. In this space of quietude, words came to me that would shape my future: You don’t know how to grieve your losses. Continue reading.

One morning near our house in NoDa, a man looked at me and said, “You and your baby are gonna die,” but he didn’t give a date, so I carried on. Later, I saw a woman in a hat that read “Make Crawfish $1.97/Pound Again,” a political stance I can get behind. And one Dec. 24, a fellow down the street was blasting AC/DC’s “T.N.T.” when he raised a Bud Light and wished me a merry Christmas. Continue reading.

Dear Pandemic,

Are you surprised to hear from me? When we parted ways, I made it clear that I never wanted to hear from you again. Although in retrospect, “I hope the door hits you in your vaccine arm” was a little harsh, I suppose. Continue reading.

If you know a journalist, you know this: We love a question. It’s less about our work and more about our nature. I have a close friend group that’s 50% journalists (and 50% people who love us anyway), and we can spend an entire evening volleying questions with barely a sentence between them. We like to learn things. Collect information. Figure stuff out. Continue reading.