Today I woke up thinking about the date March 13. Throughout the pandemic, I have hung on to that date as the beginning of it all.

Maybe I remember that date because I went to three different grocery stores that day to find toilet paper and took photos of empty store aisles at each one to text to my friends with joking captions. “This is getting serious [insert poop emoji!]” “Holy crap! No TP here either! [insert laughing emoji].

Maybe I remember the date of March 13 because we went out to dinner with friends that night and joked the whole time that it would be our “last supper.” And then a few days later we were horrified to realize how accurate we had been.

Maybe I remember because it was a Friday the 13th? And all the days that followed seemed to get progressively more dire.

I woke up thinking about this date, and what I remembered from that day. And in my sleepy haze I also counted back - one, two, three, four, five full months, plus half of March. Six months. SIX. MONTHS. We had no idea what was about to happen, back then, on March 13.

I live in Vermont. We COMPLETELY shut down this spring, throughout March, April, and May. NOTHING was open but a few gas stations and grocery stores. Nothing. And when you did venture out to get supplies, you went quick, wore a mask, doused yourself in hand sanitizer and got the heck out of there, apologizing and thanking the clerks profusely for putting themselves at risk. There weren’t even cars on the road.

Since then, we’ve slowly opened up a few things at a time. Group of 10. Then groups of 25. Then restaurants could do outdoor seating. Now they can do spaced out indoor seating. It is very rare to see somebody at a store or restaurant without a mask, at least in my part of the state. In a few weeks schools will open, mostly in hybrid models or distance models at first.

It is both astonishing to me that it has already been six months. It’s gone by so fast. Or has it? It also feels like it has been forever.