Traveling to market during COVID
Hi guys! Welcome to the 99th episode of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! Oh man…..so you know what that means?? The 100th episode is next and I have a super surprise for you guys! I have trouble believing it myself…. But for now…let’s bask in the sun of episode 99.
I’ve been traveling a little lately and
People are so interesting…aren’t they? I met my friend Teresa in Atlanta for Atlanta’s Mart Market. COVID has changed our world so much in so many ways and it is never more obvious than when I travel.
I know some of you wouldn’t dream of traveling right now and some of you are like me and just not afraid to travel. I have personally known several people who have had Covid and some wouldn’t have even known but they chose to get tested because they were around someone that was positive. I have also had second hand knowledge of 2-3 people that have been relatively healthy as far as everyone can see but they had a really hard time with Covid which included being hospitalized . So, the cases vary greatly and that is confounding. Why does it ravage one and not the other?
One thing that has changed is how quickly the public adapted to wearing masks. We are wearing masks almost exclusively anywhere you go if you are in the public, whether you are sick or not. Airport, airplane, hotel, Uber, you wear them 100% of the time.
Another big change is people are just unsure about how to proceed in areas that you would normally not think twice about. Getting on an elevator? It used to be a little awkward but not bad….well NOW it’s Completely awkward because no-one is sure if the other person is ok with them getting on with you. Then there’s the little circles on the ground for each person to stand on so that you are effectively socially distanced on your short ride between floors. My friend found out the hard way to be sure to stay in her circle when an older lady literally shoved her arm twice and told her to move into her circle because she was too close. In any scenario this was exceptionally rude and inappropriate. This was an interesting experience to me because I was sort of shocked and my judging, human mind wanted to think that she is probably really rude anyway and has always wanted to create her own space by nudging someone away, but now Covid allows her to do it and everyone just sort of looks the other way. But my open, more objective mind knows that I have to accept that she may be truly fearful and that is more than likely the reason for her behavior. But does that excuse it? Are we just going to accept rudeness because someone believes they have the moral authority to tell you what to do? This may be an area where you disagree with me, but I think that if you are genuinely that fearful and I respect that there are those that are, but if you are that fearful, you probably need to stay home until you feel it’s safe. You see? I may have a little more work to do on that grace thing…but seriously, Giving everyone a lot of grace, including yourself, is so important right now. I remind myself of that daily. It really is amazing though how varied opinions are across the board. We met people who weren’t afraid and viewed the masks as a complete waste of time, and then we of course ran into people that had double masks and clear shields.
We found there are some people praying to get the vaccine and some that wouldn’t touch it for anything. It will be interesting how that plays out, will we be required to take it to travel abroad? Who knows, if I had to guess, I would say yes, but that remains to be seen.
Something else that is a new thing is the uncomfortable surrounding anyone with even a little cough in public. I must confess that there were a few times that someone was coughing and it was kind of comical because you could see the people in their group looking at them mortified like “You can’t cough in public!” And then looking around to see if everyone else was as mortified. I felt a little guilty because I chuckled to myself because everyone knows how much Note to everyone “people are still going to drink water wrong and go into a coughing fit, not sick, just trying to breathe. People are also still going to get a tackle in their nose and sneeze. It doesn’t mean you are going to die because of it…allergies are still a thing. This is another area that calls for understanding, humor and grace.
Hotel service has changed too. They surely took the brunt because no-one was traveling but they now don’t clean the rooms but every 3 days, unless you request it. Food service in hotels is almost nonexistent. They are so short staffed, they just can’t make that happen. I think this is another area where we have to give a lot of grace. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been thanked by restaurant/hotel staff for supporting them. Surely it will all be back to normal at some point.
I can tell you this, restaurants have been hit HARD. So many of them are struggling to stay open and so many others have just closed for good. Also side note, Traveling right now with dietary restrictions is not great because options are just not there especially in hotels. This has been true no matter where I’ve traveled during COVID.
Travel also usually includes either renting a car or taking a ride with Uber. We generally take Uber and I love the Uber drivers. They are so fun to talk to and usually just so nice and talkative. One Atlanta driver told us that a lot of drivers didn’t make it because everything dried up so quickly. Uber eats picked up which helped but ride sharing is gone, not sure if that will ever be back. We laughed because he said he didn’t like doing it anyway because everyone is always so awkward. I pointed out that “We are already getting in a car with a stranger and he is letting strangers in his car, now add in OTHER strangers and it really gets awkward so I don’t think that is a big loss. He said he didn’t make money on them anyway so good it’s gone.
I looked back through my thousands of pictures stored on my phone and came across the first videos and photos from the original hard lock down in March. It seemed everyone was going to be brought together because we had a common enemy but that didn’t last very long at all. It seems almost impossible that we are still going through COVID restrictions and more impossible that it has become a point of political divide.
Everyone is dealing with things from their own world view which includes how they were raised and a lot has to do with how much news they consume. There is nowhere right now in my opinion where one can find objective, fact based information that is just news and does not have an opinion tied into it. I would also consider diversifying what you are taking in. Don’t just get one side of the story because you can almost guarantee that you are missing an important piece of information.
Part of the problem there is we have kind of fallen into listening to one side of aisle only and so we have biases that we are not even remotely aware of. I realized I do and have been actively working on being open to every single thing I hear instead of immediately shutting it down. Take the advice of Wayne Dyer and say “That’s interesting, I will consider that”. That takes humility but it also keeps your mind open and available to alternative ideas.
Things are so different right now and I am not one of the “this is the new norm” people. I don’t want this to be our new normal. I love people and want to feel connected to my local in person community again. Of course change is good and there will be a lot of good that comes out of this but I want us to be able to go back to not being afraid of each other, of not walking off the sidewalk so you don’t come near the person walking toward you. I want to get on an elevator and just have the regular awkwardness, not the advanced version. I want to go to concerts, parties and sporting events. I want the energy that comes from groups of people having fun, there isn’t much of that right now, but it will come back and we are all going to appreciate it so much more when it happens. Until then, let’s work on loving each other the best way we can. I love you all and will talk to you this week when I have my 100th episode and guys are NOT going to believe who I have but I can promise you are going to be blown away.
