We have so, so much pent up demand for life

It was my turn this week.

I got vaccinated.

I had imagined getting my shot on the field at Fenway Park or Gillette Stadium. There would be dozens of brave volunteers and hundreds of community members doing their part.

I actually got vaccinated in a Target fitting room cubicle.  

There can be no greater sign that we’re at the beginning of the end of the pandemic than vaccination clinics run by the in-house pharmacies at big box stores. I spent my 15 minute waiting period trying to figure out who had the liability for trips and falls in the changing room. It’s kind of an interesting question if you really think about…eh, never mind.

What hit me as I left, though, was the reality of how life is about to change for me and will change for all of us, hopefully soon. In a couple of weeks, I can go visit with my parents. I don’t have to panic about every stray cough after a trip to the grocery store. I don’t have to worry about somehow bringing COVID home to my family.

This past year was marked by so many big tragedies – unnecessary deaths, family businesses forced to close, workers laid off in a sputtering economy. And those of us lucky enough not to be on the front lines came to know the monotony of working and schooling from home. Or donning our masks and heading out the door to work, pressing ourselves up against opposite walls as we passed our colleagues in the corridors. Or we’ve been living through a slow motion economic descent we may never personally climb out of.

It feels self indulgent to complain about what, by comparison, amounts to mere disappointment, but I’m going to do that: for those who made it through, we’ve missed so much of life.

Our lives have been oddly unpunctuated by normal life events – holidays uncelebrated, weddings delayed, graduations a mere drive-through. Regardless of whether we’ve been grinding the pandemic out alone and lonely, or in a home overflowing with multiple generations all Zooming simultaneously until the WiFi crashes, life has been in stasis. We’ve missed the celebrations, and also all the normal transitions of normal life – moves, new relationships, a first car, terrible New Year’s Eve parties.

Life happens in fits and starts, with the humdrum of day to day responsibility in between. We’ve been all responsibility, no fits and starts for so, so long. And we need those transitions. Breaks from the day to day sketch the shape of the human experience.

We have so much pent up demand for life that we’re sitting on the precipice of a year like no other. We’ll crush everything that should have happened last year and everything that should happen this year, and some extra because who knows where we’ll be next year, and we’ll live it all at once.

And, because these are my hobbies (and, well, were also my hobbies before the pandemic), I tried to model out what I think is going to happen.

Consider what I found: massive pandemic changes to our lifestyles.

• Housing: 3 million young adults moved back in with their parents or grandparent early in the pandemic.[1] According to a Zillow analysis of Census data, this is the highest share of young adults living at home ever recorded in the US.
• Weddings: A study by Wendy Manning and Krista Payne at Bowling Green State University looked at marriage licenses issued across 5 states.[2] Extrapolating that data across the country, 340,000 fewer weddings took place than we’d expect, a decline of more than 15%.
• Babies: The Brooking Institute estimates that 300,000 fewer births will be recorded during the pandemic than expected.[3]
• Travel: In the 12 months ending March 21st, 2021, 517 million fewer passengers passed through TSA checkpoints than the year prior, a decrease of 62%.[4]

And these are the measurable changes. All, it’s going to be wild.

In the spirit of new beginnings, here are my predictions for the next twelve months.

1. We should all expect to be busy – holidays will be a little bigger, weddings more frequent, change of all sorts is afoot.
2. Transitions are hard. It’s why every celebration of transition – graduation, weddings, new babies - is at least a little bittersweet. We’re leaving something behind as we are open to something new. We’ve moved on to a new chapter. Except now we’re all doing that at once. We’ll be cranky and fractious. More conflict of all sorts. Take a breather.
3. There is going to be brutal competition for businesses that support these transitions, especially those that ran lean for the last year, may they still exist – wedding venues, rental cars, moving companies, bakeries. And all the businesses that support them. We’re going to be busy.
4. There’s going to be risk – lots of moving pieces and changes, in a culture newly aware that the lives of billions of people can change on a dime. And carelessness in the face of risk, for the very same reasons.

Given that we’re predicted to be at 200M vaccines administered in the US by June…life about to break loose. All of the dynamism of human life, all of that’s been on hold, and here it comes.

Stay well. Stay careful. It’s not over yet.

[1] https://www.zillow.com/research/coronavirus-adults-moving-home-27271/

[2] Manning, W., & Payne, K. (2020, December 30). Marriage and Divorce Decline During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of Five States. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/tdfvc

[3] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/12/17/the-coming-covid-19-baby-bust-update/#:~:text=This%20work%20is%20an%20update,500%2C000%20fewer%20births%20in%202021.

[4] https://www.tsa.gov/coronavirus/passenger-throughput