By Emily Stonehouse

Five years ago today, I was toying between the idea of shutting down my computer, or letting it sleep.

I am notorious for letting my computer drift to sleep; leaving the steady rattle and hum act as white noise for my forever busy brain.

But five years ago, I thought that maybe I should shut it down.

Just one of those niggling little feelings. We were told it would be two weeks (at the most) until we would return to our offices. No one was really sure why. At the time, the talk around the water cooler was about “Corona” virus. Many references to beer and limes were made.

So I shut my computer down. Optimistic about the many updates I’d been putting off, finally getting a chance to maneuver my server. It’ll be ready to roll in two weeks.

I never saw that computer again.

Two weeks turned into two months turned into two years, and beyond.

And one of the most significant events in human history, unfolded before our very eyes.

The COVID-19 pandemic turned the world upside down exactly five years ago, this very week. And that’s a number that stands out to me.

Five years? That went so fast.

Five years? That went so slow.

Five years? So much has changed.

Five years? So much feels the same.

There is not a single person I know who came through that pandemic unscathed. Millions died. I remember looking up numbers each and every day; pulled into a vortex of doom and gloom because for some reason, that number was at least something tangible. A rock I could hold on to while the river raged around me.

It wasn’t long before we were baking bread, learning TikTok dances, walking our dogs and changing the side of the street we were on in an effort to avoid mixing and mingling air particles.

And we were the lucky ones.

For me? I changed my career a few times over that journey. From a municipal staffer to a stay-at-homeschooler in one fell swoop.

And while there was an abundance of uncertainty and sadness, there was also such joy in the glimmers of the world. The books we read and the movies we watched and a pace for day-to-day life that finally allowed us to take a deep breath from the hustle and buzz of the world.

And I am still acutely aware of the economic impacts the pandemic had on our rural world; I still hear the word ‘covid’ at least once a day. I know this, because I am actively keeping track of it; noting the ebbs and flows of conversations and how so many anchor to that term.

It was a starting point for so many. An ending point for others. Before Covid or After Covid; the meaningful markers for a time of certainty versus a never-ending drop.

When I see a group of people now, laughing and smiling with one another, sometimes it still feels wrong. Like I wasn’t sure it was something we ever could do again, ever would do again.

But here we are. Five years later. And while none of us are unscathed, we can’t deny that we didn’t somehow change, adapt, survive, and grow.

It went so fast.

It went so slow.

Turns out we all shut down, and installed some new updates.