And so we wait. Not in anticipation of any one thing. Or a random collection of many things which might delight or surprise us in equal measure. Or a collection of things in measures non-equal but equally random in their ability to delight or surprise us.

And yet we wait. Of course we miss the time that preceded. Some days, we tell ourselves that we are starting to enjoy the wait. Sometimes that’s true, other times it’s a lie we need to believe is true. Of course we miss the embrace of our loved ones and the jealous sneers of our haters. Yes, we miss bailing on plans last-minute and not feeling bad because we know we will soon see them again in 3D. Yes, we miss going to over-capacity bars that make us sweat; partly because of the thrill and partly because the sweat reminds us that we are human after all, since it’s been many days since we deleted the Peloton App from our phones. But the wait is here and wait we must.

I guess we wait. We realize we don’t know how long or how little the wait will be. And so anxious minds, cluttered thoughts and heavy hearts visit our bodies from time to time. We thank them for their presence and understand that while they mean well, they are unsettling and so we wish for them to leave. So we can wait.

The weight of the wait is real. Much like the summer fruitfly that has recently invaded every San Franciscan’s avocado bowl, we’ve all had to adapt our lives to the wait. Handshakes, hugs and hearty hi-fives are bygones of the era before the wait. Now we virtually Irish exit from happy-hour to happy-hour waiting for a happier hour on the other side of the wait.

Oh yes, we wait. For we know that every mundane thing after the wait will be extraordinary in our eyes. We will cherish the dull and boring stuff. Every time you Uber pool with a stranger and don’t have to aggressively monitor for coughs and sneezes. Every time you run into your work-husband at the coffee machine. And every time when talk of curves and flattening of them has more to do with diets than epidemiology.

Till then, we wait on Dr Fauci to save us all.