GET BACK ON THAT BIKE!
LENELL
Recently, my daughter and I found ourselves in a waiting room at the doctor’s office. It was definitely a change from waiting in your car to be summoned by phone call or text. The main counter was conspicuously absent of front desk staff as they too seemed to be experiencing the national staff shortage. No one said a word as we walked around the waiting room. I began to think that my daughter and I were in the wrong place but the sign on the door confirmed that this was the correct place for blood draws. After wandering around a bit, I realized the lab techs were located in an adjacent back room doing double duty as they checked people in between blood draws and therefore the wait time would be at least 30 minutes. Our visit that day was the result of my daughter recently finding herself host to a tick after hanging out in the back yard. Upon examining the bite her doctor wanted to make sure the tick had not passed along any illnesses. My doctor just has an affinity for lab work, so we found ourselves anxiously awaiting mother and daughter blood draws.
I quickly realized it wasn’t just the anxiety of waiting for the needle stick and the unsettling feeling that follows from having blood removed from your body that was making me feel so uneasy. It was the odd uncomfortable silence of the people in the waiting room. Even my daughter and I ceased to have any side chatter falling into the awkward silence of the others in the room. About ten minutes into our odd group solitude, a gentleman came wandering in and seemed just as confused as I had been. I looked up making eye contact trying to convey my empathy over my mask, but I found myself panicked about speaking out to offer direction. His voice suddenly came booming out in contrast to the stillness of the waiting room. “Where is everyone?” he said jerking his head back to the abandoned darkened front desk. “Am I in the right place?” his voiced boomed again. I found myself using an odd stage whisper as I replied and explained that you check in through the door in the back. I felt heat rushing to my face like I had just engaged in some criminal activity by directing him to a secret entry that led to a speakeasy off the back of the medical building. He thanked me looking relieved that someone had come to his rescue.
At this point it dawned on me how uncomfortable everyone was in this social situation. I have recently heard it referred to as “re-entry”. As if we are all descending back into the atmosphere of earth from outer space and yet it does somehow feel strange entering back into a social atmosphere. Here we all were finally in the vicinity of other human beings that you haven’t been living on top of for the past 15 months. You would think we would have all been yammering over each other excited to hear something – anything - new from another person. Instead, we were all too uncomfortable to speak and all looking down to avoid eye contact.
The gentleman came back into the waiting room and sat across from my daughter and me. His voice once again jarring as the soundwaves broke the barrier in the room and asked us if we had seen the viral video of the young girl pushing the bear off a fence to rescue her dog. It took me a moment to process that a response was required and to find my voice to reply simply, “no,” followed by a clumsily delivered “we have not” just to add in a few extra words. My response still sounded short and abrupt to my ears. I felt like I needed to somehow say something that would prevent him from feeling uncomfortable for breaking this odd social expectation. A unspoken rule that had somehow arisen out of everyone’s obvious discomfort with human interaction. I told him I could see how someone who loved their dog as part of their family might act impulsively to save their dog without thinking about the risk of engaging a bear. This led onto a back and forth discussion on different dog breeds, our personal dogs, dogs we had seen in the park, and dogs, dogs, dogs. I was very self-conscious of every comment and question I made but was determined to stay on topic and engage with the man who obviously really wanted to take this opportunity to talk to another person - no matter how badly his conversation partner was at keeping in step. Sneaking furtive glances around the room I noticed others intently observing this rusty and wobbly get-back-on-the-bike-ride of a conversation. I would see an eyebrow go up or a tilt of a head and think, do they want to chime in?, or do they just wish we would stop talking about dogs?
My daughter was silent with the occasional pleading teenage look over her mask that said, please stop embarrassing me. She recently had a tough experience with an organized group outing where she felt overwhelmed because there were just so many people. I can relate as the two times I have been in a restaurant; I have felt anxious because it just doesn’t seem normal anymore to be this close to so many other people.
I realized family outings now need to include or at least put us in the vicinity of other people so we can work on social skills again. Everyone, children and adults, have seemed to experience social atrophy. I hear from friends in the restaurant industry how rude and aggressive patrons have become. I read about how likely it is to witness a brawl flying on an airplane as people adjust to close quarters with other people. Astronauts will tell you a slow methodical re-entry is the safest. Planning short regular outings as a family and date nights are a good start to building up to a plane ride and vacation. Exercising those conversational skills and reestablishing social expectations will take some practice for us and our children. Einstein is credited with saying “Life is like riding a bicycle. In order to keep your balance, you must keep moving." It’s time to get out there, no matter how awkward, and just start interacting.
