I feel like this summer, particularly June and July, we really started to see places, especially Alberta and the USA going back to their lifestyles pre-pandemic. I don’t really feel like that has been the case in Ontario, especially not for me. I should have attended a beautiful wedding in the English countryside last week, travelling around on a road trip with my favourite cousin. I know that weddings are starting to happen again, but for immigrant families it still really feels like we are isolated from our families. My cousin got married in England, and despite the fact that they have reopened the border to American tourists, they have not reopened the border to Canadians (even though we have a higher vaccination rate and lower case/hospitalization/death rates). And my work would require me to self-isolate when I returned. I was so hoping that they would change their policies for vaccinated Canadians, but they didn’t and so, no one in my family went to my cousin’s wedding. No one from my aunt’s side of the family was at their wedding.

And I know they had a great time, and they were supposed to get married last year so they are just relieved to finally be married and start their lives as a married couple. However, for us, it’s crushing.

My family’s situation is not unique to us, there are many immigrants who are the only part of their family in this country or even on this continent and it has been so long since we have seen our families.

From several months last year, there were articles everywhere about how it was okay to be sad and to mourn the cancellation of your prom, graduation, wedding, vacation, whatever. That it was okay to mourn these things even if they don’t compare to the sadness and devastation that families who have experienced loss and health care workers who have experienced war-time conditions during the pandemic. But there is nothing for people who still, eighteen months later, still aren’t getting to experience family events.

Tons of people are acting like life is going back to normal, but it’s not. It’s going to be a long time before I am able to easily go see my extended family, before we can travel easily, before big weddings, birthdays, and funerals are back, despite what you may be seeing out of the USA and I don’t know how much longer I can deal with that.

We all will deal though, we’ll continue plugging away at our silly little jobs, doing our workouts, drinking our water, trying to entertain and soothe ourselves, and living our lives in the Groundhog Day that has been the past 18 months.

This is a little bit depressing, but the point of this blog was to be a way for me to catalogue my thoughts and chronicle my lifestyle, and my current life feels stuck and stagnant playing a waiting game for the pandemic to be over or COVID-19 to become endemic. I honestly don’t care which anymore.

Have a great day, and congratulations Archie and Lauren!

Laura