What happens when something changes your life and then the world stops talking about it? After talking with Kenny that question has been sitting with me.

As I worked on this episode with Kenny, I kept coming back to my own experience during COVID. Not the headlines. Not the rules. But the moments that stayed with me long after everything else moved on. For me, that moment was brain surgery. At a time when the world already felt uncertain, I found myself walking into a hospital knowing I was going into something serious. However, what made it harder was not just the surgery itself. It was everything surrounding it.

My husband waited.

Not in the room. Not down the hall.

He waited alone.

For twelve hours, for me to come out of surgery

At the time, we accepted it. We followed the guidelines. Like everyone else, we were doing what we were told was right. Still, when the surgery was over, and after all that waiting, they told him he still could not come see me, It was after hours.

I remember thinking, when I heard this after waking up, I guess COVID goes away after hours? That moment stayed with me, and it was not just us.

No one else could visit the hospital, families were separated during some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives. People said goodbye through phones, through screens, or sometimes not at all. At the same time, life outside the hospital was shifting just as quickly.

I had a friend who moved out of state, not because she wanted to start over, but because she was hoping to find a place where the rules felt more livable. That alone says so much about that time. People were not just adapting, they were rearranging their lives to make sense of something that often did not.

Looking back now, it all feels a little surreal, we adjusted so quickly. We accepted things that, before that moment, would have felt impossible. Then, over time, those changes became normal. Not temporary. Not questioned. It was just the way things were.

And maybe that is what Kenny was getting at. Not whether everything was right or wrong. But how quickly we moved through something so big, and how quietly we seemed to leave it behind. Because the truth is, we did not leave it behind.

We carry it.

In the way we think, the way we connect, and the way we show up for each other.

COVID did not just change our routines. It changed us. Even now, there are parts of that time that still do not feel fully processed. There are questions that were never answered. There are moments that never got the closure they deserved, yet somehow, we learned to keep going. We found ways to connect, even when we were told to stay apart. We learned what mattered, often by losing access to it. In some ways, we became more aware. In other ways, we became more guarded.

And now, here we are.

Living in what used to feel temporary. Calling it normal. So maybe the question is not just why we stopped talking about COVID.

Maybe it is this.

What do we do with something that changed us so deeply? Do we move on? Or do we take a moment to remember, reflect, and understand it, so we can carry it differently?

I do not have the answer.

But I do know this.

We lived through something together that we may never fully experience again in our lifetime, and maybe, just maybe, it is worth talking about.

Healing with you,

Heather