Facebook has a feature called Memories that shows you previous pictures and posts from your own timeline. Every morning when I log on, Facebook shows me posts from a year ago, two years ago, five years ago, and in some cases, ten years ago. I’m constantly reminded of parties and friends and holidays, but the posts from one year ago this month are most curious.

The first few posts are trivial. Innocent. There are pictures of food and thoughts about video games. In the second half of the month, the posts begin to change. Mostly they’re reactions to the arrival and spread of COVID-19. Each post contains an undertone of wonder and disbelief, bordering on incredulity. People are going to start wearing masks in public? Restaurants are going to close? The NBA is going to pause their season? In my first blog post about coronavirus, posted on March 20, 2020, I mentioned that I was waiting for a pause in the news cycle in order to write something, but that pause never came.

I think hard times are easier to get through when you know good times lie ahead, but month after month I (and millions of others) waited for the good times, wondering when (and sometimes if) they would arrive. While we waited, we watched the end of Mason’s senior year of high school crumble. We cancelled vacations. The kids began attending school virtually. Susan and I began working virtually.

For me, the light at the end of the tunnel came in our first vaccination shot, which we received two weeks ago. In February, Oklahoma opened up shots to, among other groups, overweight people. Not one to turn down an opportunity (or apparently dessert) I jumped at the chance.

For the record, I feel no guilt about getting the shot when we did. More than one person on social media has made passive-aggressive comments toward me, hinting that overweight people should not be receiving vaccines before anyone else. It’s impossible to track what rules which states and cities are following. We signed up like everyone else, hit refresh on our browsers a hundred times like everyone else, and got our shots when they became available. Hate the game, not the player.

I’ve also had several people (both friends and acquaintances) explain to me why they are not getting the vaccine. It’s a personal choice. I no longer have it in me to be the mask police, and I’m not about to start being the vaccine police. All I can say is, I see the vaccine as the path to normalcy. I want to start eating out again. I want to go on vacation again. I want to go to garage sales again. I don’t want to worry about contracting a disease every time I hear someone cough behind me.

I hope that when I log on to Facebook in 2022, my posts from 2021 will be the opposite of 2020’s. I hope the memories start with posts about boredom and vaccines and end with pictures of food taken inside the restaurants that survived.