They think it’s all over! It is now?!

Can I get a ‘three cheers’ for everyone who’s kept their shit together over the past couple of months?

Can I get a ‘whoop whoop’ to all those who are plugged into their computers, juggling zoom meetings and staring at the same wall for twenty-four hours a day?

Can I get a ‘hell yeah’ to those who resisted the urge to post photos of a food trend, restaurant box contents or their homemade banana bread?

Can I get a single fisted ‘power punch’ in the air to anyone that’s had to home school their little treasures and made it through to March without throttling them in their sleep?

Virtual high fives to all those who have thanklessly cooked and slaved around their family. Further ‘Big Ups’ and applause to anyone who spent long periods of time alone, questioning their own sanity and getting to know the voice inside their head a little bit better. And extra hard claps to those who have felt the call of duty to return to the family coop to protect their gaggle, even though there’s a looming Sunday night argument almost every day. And of course, a huge thank you to the NHS for going above and beyond.

I am so proud we’ve made it this far. How we have evolved, adapted, trained and strained ourselves to survive the latest round of the pandemic. Are you as numb to the evening news as I am right now? It all seems to wash over us so easily, almost as if we are in episode three of ‘Years & Years’.

But finally, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. June 21st has been block booked for the ‘comeback.’ It is going to be chaos across the country.

I feel as the human race, we have woken up and come together. We have been all quietly complaining about the same situation and that has brought us closer. There is no black and white, East or West, just the shared pain of distance in plain sight. We feel it as one. We finally all have common ground across the globe — we are united by suffering together in silence.

As the days trickled by, positive vibes were dumped into sharable captions over socials. Podcasts blew up and opened our eyes, old songs and new music healed hearts. Home cooked food nourished the soul, television drew out the drama we needed like a bad pimple. Phone calls from loved ones became precious and honest, legal hugs were more valuable than gold when the chips were down.

We stretched ourselves, bettered ourselves, shared the tips and tricks that helped us through it all — we even spoke to our neighbours. When was the last time that happened? Comrades through Covid, flying the flag to defeat the deadly virus. But will this euphoric phase last? Will we slip back into bad habits once the restrictions are lifted? Will the hangover on the 22nd of June be so brutal we will never want to drink again?

We have all been under an immense amount of pressure — to perform at work, to earn our daily bread, to smile and laugh, to get through the day without snarking off and leave our character intact. We work hard at not blowing up like a forgotten volcano and starting a riot, for that we should be praised. Now the clouds have cleared, and spring is in our steps, where do we go from here?

Will life become like the post-prohibition era of the 1920’s? Are we going to go Gatsby style when lockdown ends? Drinking our way through Summer, dancing into the sunset and onto happier times? Will we be telling stories to our grandchildren of secret trysts, illegal basement raves and the great toilet roll shortage of 2020? Or will the appearance of the virus become just another dark fact of life, like taxes, Piers Morgan being contentious and Mickey Rourke’s new face?

I hope we have learned from this past year and have rediscovered our zest for life. I pray we come out of this with a brand-new bag of goals. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to walk the streets of London and share smiles with one another, rather than our kindness or regard for others being ignored? We can change that; the power is in our hands. We were hurtling towards a shady new world before it all kicked off. As a race we were self-obsessed, arrogant in our ways, from health to wealth, we took it too far. We have been gifted a second chance at changing the ecosystem in which we exist. A new chapter is about to begin, which way will you step forward on this journey into a new dawn?