How Social Distancing Has Confused Boundaries

The other day at the gym, an older gent came up to me, and began a conversation. We were both masked, which was great, but his extra closeness to me was admittedly not so great.

While we chatted about my enviable dedication to a morning routine of daily workouts, I was writhing inside from the uncomfortable way in which this stranger was leaning into me, as if he intended to gobble me up on the spot.

The socially awkward moment was thankfully over almost as soon as it began, and as we both parted ways, I walked away with the nagging thought that still persists, when it comes to longterm effects of a global pandemic, that forced us to embrace a version of functionality that’s constantly evolving.

Truth be told, before the fateful arrival of COVID-19, I was already sort of in quarantine mode, and had been for almost two years. After relocating back East from Los Angeles in late 2017, I spent the first few months trying to recover from the mental and physical woes that typically burden the psyche of sensitive mid-lifers.

By the time 2020 rolled around, I was more than ready to return to my former hub of NYC, and re-assimilate into a cruel society and polarizing workforce, in the hopes that my advancing age and depleting viability wouldn’t produce harsher results than I can sanely handle.