Hi Myra,
This is to you and all your future friends. You just turned 1.5 last week. Many others born in late 2019 and 2020 are probably in the same boat as you. Your 6 month, 1 year, and all major milestones have been low-key affairs(Not that I am personally complaining)
Your life has had a new normal. A normal where we all wear masks when we go out. A normal when your sign to indicate to us to take you out is to take us to our masks. A normal where you have not met most of your cousins yet. You have not met most of your relatives either. You do not have any friends as well( I don’t know if in a normal time 1.5-year-old have friends but let us assume they did).
Shit happens. You will learn it through the course of your life. A big one happened in late 2019 and this normal you see suddenly became the new normal for all of us across the world. This is not how any of this is supposed to be. You were supposed to go out and see faces. You were supposed to play in the park and meet other people and friends and family. You did not have to wait for someone who has gone out to wash their hands before they lifted you(It is probably a good habit nevertheless that we should continue). All these are stuff you can throw under shit happens and we live.
Unfortunately, we messed up more than that. Yes, shit happened. But, WE, as in all the adults born much before you and much wiser and mature than you did not deal with the Shit as well as we should have. What that meant is that the Shit continued for a long long time. We did things we should not have ideally done. Not to say any of this was easy for us. It was not but by letting down our guards and taking things easy, we have now reached a stage where apart from the new normal, it has now started affecting you and your future too.
Many kids including infants like you are now Covid(Shit) Positive(No positive about it really) which means an anxious couple of weeks for parents but along with the warning label that there could be long-term effects. That is the part that I think we have majorly messed up. We did not have complete control over the new normal but we could have ensured your future was safe. Unfortunately, we did not. This Shit is still mysterious so there is a good chance, things turn out well and OK in the future. But for those of you who may end up with long-term disorders or mental health issues due to something completely out of your control at such a young age, it is not your fault. The adults messed up.
Here is to hope this new normal ends soon and you can see the normal in which we grew up in.
To you and all your future friends, We promise to get better at everything. It is a work in progress.
