Stevie Szabad, Author

September always feels like the start of a new year to me. As does my birthday, in May: It’s the feel of a new season, new activities, fresh beginnings. It has never felt more like a new life than this closing of September of 2020 – the year we shall always reference by “before Covid, after Covid”. This year needs no more reason to look ahead than that, but here are my own personal observations that this past month has been the start of a new life.

If you read my August update, you know my dear husband Don suffered a serious event (not Covid) that kept him in hospital for 2 weeks. He came home September 1, and the new life of second chances began. Doctor follow-ups (for both of us – early 60s is when old age shows what may be in store for the last decades of health); lifestyle tweaks to diet and exercise; new equipment like a sleep apnea machine – a life-saver that deserves more recognition – and sugar monitoring toys. All new and now part of our lives. Truly a September of new beginnings.

Other things started up in September. My curling club had orientation meetings for how we will play our sport safely in these times. I’m so eager, my tummy feels funny; it’s like the first day of school again! School: I watch the kids around here bustle with comings and goings, school buses everywhere during the bright shiny days of late summer. It’s thrilling and uplifting to hear the younger ones squealing on the playgrounds, to see the teenagers laughing with iced drinks at lunch hour and all wearing their flirty fun masks. Other than the masks, it can feel quite wonderful, like the world will get out of this pandemic after all. We will deal with it. Yes, September is over. Summer is over. Darkly, on the horizon, is Winter; it is coming. Codes orange and red shimmer their dark potential over everything. We are warned of second and more wave arrivals. But October, brilliant with the promise of a new normal is already here, and I shall learn to surf the waves!

Want more Stories? Check out previous Covid Diary posts. And my Books. Reading is forever, pre- post- and always 😉