Normalcy

Have we turned a corner?  Is this a dawn of a new age?  A new post-COVID world?  What will be the same?  What will be different?  For starters, it seems that masks may be on the way out.  It has been announced that the Washington state indoor mask mandate will be lifted on March 21.  The day that I don't have to wear a mask just to go shopping will be a good day.  The day that I don't have to wear a mask in the office will be a good day.  Will I still have to wear a mask at the airport and on my flight to the UK in April?  I suspect so.  But we shall see.  What may change might be my working patterns.  We are expected to go back to the office soon.  Naturally, the timelines for this are totally out of sync with the timelines for the indoor mask mandate.  From the beginning of March, there will no exceptions for people like me who want to work fully remotely.  Instead, I can work remotely up to 3 days per week without manger approval.  And then from the beginning of April, I will only be allowed to work remotely up to 3 days per week with manager approval and under our company's pre-pandemic flexible working rules.  Do I really want to go back to working in the office every day like before?   I don't mind going back to some degree, especially since the new company policy is that everyone has to have had a booster shot.  But as everyone else also returns to their offices across the region, I think the commute could be worse than ever.  With predictable timing, the free Tuesday lunches at work are ending next week.  I honestly don't know how I'm going to approach work now.  They have eliminated core hours, so I'm almost thinking to get into the office mid-morning, leave the office in mid-afternoon, avoid rush hours, and work from home to make up the hours.  Is that even an option?  Frankly, I don't want to work at all - I've been thinking a lot recently about taking a sabbatical.  At a minimum, I think it's something I really want to do when I turn 50.  Especially as the pandemic has made me reflect on how fragile our lives are, and that I want to go to places and see more of our fragile world whilst I still can and before it's too late.