“This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.” ~T.S. Eliot
I used to believe in the Apocalypse.
I thought it was some fantasmic, spectacularly obscene alternate reality that would somehow intersperse with our own sometime in the distant future, in some Buck Rogers timeline that wouldn’t see me in it at all. So I wasn’t worried. This was back before I had kids, so I wasn’t concerned about them either.
It was a far off dream, not favorable, but so far-fetched it couldn’t happen until there was a world gone awry, until perfect circumstances set it up for success. Not unlike most dreams, it had a basis, a grounding in reality, but it would always go off the rails at some point, and I would wake up drenched in sweat. It would take me a while to recover, but when I looked outside I knew I was safe.
I don’t feel so safe anymore. And the Apocalypse doesn’t feel so far fetched anymore either. It’s not something that might happen to others somewhere down the line. I’m still here. I’m still vibrant. I’m still human enough to recognize my fragility in the face of this novel event, in the cresting, crashing, then cresting again wave that is this virus. And I think to myself, will life ever be the same again?
Will I go out again in public sometime and not be worried that it might get me. Will I be in large groups again and not cringe away from others because of this social distancing? Will this be the “new normal,” where I’m wary all the time because no one will be able to tell me I’m okay?
I just don’t know. Which is the scariest part of all. People are saying, “When this thing is over…” but I’m worried it won’t be, not really, that this is just the first of many that will come, that will pillage humanity, that will take its pound of flesh before moving on. I’m worried that I will become such a recluse that I won’t want to open up again, that my wings will be permanently sewn to my back.
I don’t want that. But I’m afraid. That’s it, after all. I’m afraid that once this moves on it won’t have moved on at all, at least not in my soul, not to my fragile self. Maybe that’s the real Apocalypse anyway, the enduring fear of what may come, because of what has been, and what might be again.
I used to believe in the Apocalypse, but now I know that the fear of real life might just be worse.
Sam's Online Journal 
“…once this moves on it won’t have moved on at all…” I have thought about this many times over the last 2 weeks. This will definitely slow or halt progress in the world. But more importantly, it may create a situation where even more people forget how to interact in person. They will spend too much time staring at their screens, forgetting what it is like to be human and kind to one another.