April Fool's Reflections

Yesterday during our afternoon stroll, while casually discussing the state of the world, Brent and I realized we've been in our place one year. Last April 1st we had the old house all packed, the moving truck arriving, and were ridiculously excited to be leaving the 'burbs behind and dive headfirst into city living again. 

It got us talking about real estate, a topic we know nothing about, but can speculate on in the company of the equally ignorant. Spring is notorious for home buying and selling. What are all these shelter-in-place warnings doing to the spring market? I think the craziest thing about all this is that every time you think you get a handle on how crazy it is, something happens that shakes everything you think you know. Initially, everyone banded behind restaurants and small-business owners as the ones taking the hardest hit. But then you stop and think about any line of work - real estate, for instance- and realize that literally no one is safe from this. 

Speaking of restaurants, I can't even imagine what those teams are going through. Restaurant work has always been there, a reliable fallback plan. It's a job some people train for while others stumble into it, but the constant chaos of it has always been the backbone of our cities. Hospitality workers are usually a hodgepodge motley crew, one that I have developed a real affinity for in the last few years, and knowing that they are all out of work indefinitely is almost impossible to comprehend.

The restaurant I was working at closed for renovations at the end of 2019, with the expectation being to rebrand and open in spring of 2020 with a new name, menu and concept, and our jobs waiting for us. That sounded suspicously too good to be true, so I started the job hunt in January and took an admin job outside the industry. I think about my colleagues and wonder what job they ended up in, if they're fortunate enough to be able to work through this. I think about the restaurant I helped open, coming up on their 4 year anniversary (birthday?), and wonder if a small town restaurant will be able to survive this.

I don't know about you, but I was hoping to wake up today with giant "APRIL FOOL'S" headlines, these last few weeks being a very sophisticated prank. April fool's, humans, now you've seen what it's like to have your world turned on its head. Learn your lesson and do better in the future. I can only hope there are some positive repercussions from this; more working remote, less taken for granted, the realization that what we do impacts other people. 

Normally something as arbitrary as our one-year moving anniversary would merit an evening out. I'd meet Brent for post-work drinks, celebrating our move, we made it to April, the start of spring, all of it. In this upside-down we've found ourselves, the celebration tonight looks a little less merry. We might treat ourselves to a beer at 4:30, a whole 30 minutes earlier than normal. We might thrown in that buffalo chicken pizza I've been saving for a special occasion. We might even -and I don't want to make any promises here- walk around the corner for takeout. 

Happy one year being back in Boston, B! If you told me last April I'd be spending 24 hours a day with you, Munch and Finn in our 800 square foot oasis for the indefinite future, I'd gladly make the move ten times over.