Toasting to the good life

There aren’t a lot of great things that have come with the pandemic, but I find myself happily enjoying the good things.

My gal pals and I are going to have our first fall virtual happy hour next Wednesday. We started having them once a week this past summer, but as the days grew busier with all of our “adjusting” to the pandemic we found it harder to get together even with the help of our electronics.

What does it say when we finally become acclimated to our new life changes and we can once again set aside just one hour per week for such a simple ritual?

I think it says that life is getting back to being good and I’ll take good over the sadness and uncertainty that’s been so prevalent since March. It’s been exhausting dealing with all the bad news we hear and see and having to cope with it all without the benefit of in-person visits with our friends.

One good thing about having great friends is that they don’t shame you with their passions for the Vikings or the Packers, Biden or Trump, they just let you have your own opinions and let it be at that.

I think one mistake people make when developing friendships is that they think you have to agree on everything in order to be friends. I think it’s better to have some areas of disagreement so you can always remember it’s more important to be a good friend than it is to be right. It takes a lot of skill and dedication to be able to appreciate the differences in order to protect the respect that comes from having good friends.

We don’t always get the opportunity to embrace that kind of critical thinking these days because we’re too busy posting and liking and sharing and spending way too much time on social media outlets. It’s hard to cast all the blame on that, but with people not socializing in person as much anymore, I’m a little concerned that we won’t know how to behave once the worst of the pandemic is over.

My biggest fear is that I’ll resemble the Dr. Niles Crane character (of the TV show Frasier) pulling out a disinfectant tissue and wiping down chairs and tables before I deem the world suitable for me to participate in and that preoccupation will come at the expense of greeting old friends with a warm hug and shaking hands with new ones. Of course if that behavior becomes the new normal then it won’t really matter.

I’m hoping my old friends will keep me on track and keep me real. I hope there will be more good things happening at regular intervals so we get used to appreciating and accepting the good news in whatever form it takes. I’m hopeful about being hopeful again and I couldn’t really say that last spring.

We have much to be grateful for and as I check in with my “peeps” next week I’ll look forward to toasting to the good life. Skol!