It's time for the 14th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge!
I believe this is my 7th year of participating in the Slice of Life Story Challenge. It was fun to see the memories of past Slice of Life Story Challenges with students come up in my Facebook memories. It's such an amazing community.
Today I flipped my Shutterfly wall calendar page up to March 2021. Every year I make a calendar with each month full of photo memories of the year before. It's a great way to reflect, celebrate, and look forward to future memory moments. What a surreal moment it was to see pictures from this time last year. My 2020 FB comment when I shared the 2019 March calendar page was, "Turned the Shutterfly calendar page to March 1st - I love seeing last year’s memories. Excited to see what this year’s March brings!" Hmmm...little did I know!
The first weekend of March 2020 we went on a girls' trip to Pittsburgh with my best friends. We have a favorite Airbnb house on the top of a hill, overlooking the city where we like to spend the weekend hanging out. It's a central place for us from Cincinnati to meet our college friend from State College, PA. That weekend was a precipace - there was lots of talk of Covid-19, but there was not a consensus of how serious it was. One of our friends had a daughter in New York City, and she was ready to pick her up and bring her home. The rest of us were a little nonchalant. Was it really all that serious? Well, yes. It was. She was right.
We had no idea it was going to be that devastating a year ago; we were laughing, eating cheetos and pizza, and drinking wine. We didn't know our lives were about to change drastically. We didn't know schools, restaurants, stores, and businesses would close. We didn't know we wouldn't be seeing our families and friends in person indefinitely. We didn't know we would all be wearing masks for at least another year. We didn't know Zoom was about to dominate our lives. We didn't know that we wouldn't be able to find toilet paper. We didn't know 500,000+ people would die of this virus. We didn't know.
At least there is some hope. Vaccines are rolling out. Schools are mostly in person, and education is transforming. Businesses are coming back and many are thriving. Working from home is a thing, and it can be successful. Innovative ideas are being implemented. Families are beginning to be reunited. Deaths are declining. Human beings are resilient.
So it's March of 2021. When we flip that calendar page in 2022, what will this month's memories bring?
"Little did I know. . ." is such a perfect sentiment for how this last year has unfolded. When I saw you post this evening, I smiled. My first thought was, "I met Holly at the inaugural Nerdy Book Club gathering! So glad you got to spend time with girlfriends. I'm desperately missing my "people", but soon enough we will flock together again. So glad ou are here. I love your calendar idea by the way!
ReplyDeleteTenille!!! What a great time that was! It was such a privilege to be a part of that first one, wasn't it?! So happy to see you here!
DeleteI have a feeling come March 13th, slices will be full of memories of that day. Other than 9/11, I can't think of an event that has affected me in my lifetime as much as this. I was so excited to see this post!
ReplyDeleteI love how you repeat the phrase "we didn't know..." It's kind of staggering to think of how much we didn't know.
ReplyDeleteHey friend! I've missed you so much. Our lives have changed, but we can still write on our blogs and connect the miles.
ReplyDeleteThis is Margaret Simon. It didn't register from my school computer.
DeleteI'm so happy to connect again! I love seeing you as a grandma!!!!!
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