What once was called quarantine, is now the everyday life. COVID has thrown a wrench in the normal functioning of, well, everything! Sadly this includes our relations with our friends, colleagues and those who lie in the intersection of the two.

While social distancing is highly desireable, emotional distancing isn’t. So to stay in touch with my friends, I started scheduling fortnightly catch ups with them. This entails a standard meeting invite - a Google calendar invitation for a repeating time slot and details of a Zoom room. I’ve been following this process for the last two months and the response so far has been favorable from everyone involved.

While it may seem a tad too organized, and lacking the sense of spontaneity of normal days - the reality is that “normal” is a thing of the past. There are no more “chance” meetings where you bump into your colleagues over coffee or lunch in the cafeteria, no more running into acquaintances in the mall, and definitely no meeting new people at a friend’s place. We are all running on survival mode even if we tend to forget it. Pining for normality won’t do anyone much good - making changes to make the situation bearable just might.