What Now: Call It a Comeback

Erik Charlson is Oklahoma Today's spring intern. Each week, in What Now, he'll take us on his journey learning about Oklahoma and navigating an uncertain future.

If things keep going the way they are, it seems as though we will be back to "normal" living in the near future.

Vaccines are rolling out and some states are starting to relieve COVID-19 protocols. For the first time in a year, it looks like good things are on the horizon. As a soon-to-graduate college student, I'm hoping my next step involves a normal working environment that isn’t limited by the restrictions that COVID brought. It certainly hasn't made college easier.

As of this writing, almost a third of our state has started getting a COVID-19 vaccine and those numbers are rising by the day. Seeing some real improvement is exciting after the endless letdown of 2020. I think half of the people I know had a gradual descent into insanity, but this virus is slowly but surely fading from our lives. There is still much to be done and hopefully people will follow the protocols that are set in place until it is truly time to go back to the way things were.

We can't blame it all on the virus. In the midst of a pandemic, our country's political divides became deeper. There is always a side to take, and people sure do take them. As someone entering adulthood, the choices I make and the sides I take suddenly have more gravity to them. My opinions become factors, as it did this year when I voted for the first time in my life. I feel that responsibility, and it feels good.

However, when we needed unity most, we had division. Turn on the TV, open a magazine, or scroll through your phone, and it's hard to find anything but quarrels and disagreements. With no middle ground to work with, people in quarantine hit their limit. These conflicts made me lose faith in something I was about to contribute to on a larger scale. Society seemed to be falling apart.

It is fair to say the past year was not pretty. It is March, but I am just now trying to digest and hopefully alleviate myself of 2020's woes. It was the most historic year of my young life, and I think people just gritted their teeth, adjusted, and accepted what life is like right now. There were times I felt like giving up hope, but things are getting better. I do not like the way we, as people, responded to this pandemic, but I hope that we can learn from it.

That is my goal from all of this and I hope others do the same: review how you reacted to the virus and those around you. If there is ever an obstacle course of a year like this in my lifetime again, I hope there is a different response—one that builds up others, and one that will set a good example for the next generation. Because I don’t think we got that this time around.

Written By

Erik Charlson