It was a warm summer night.
The windows were cracked, filling my bedroom with a warm breeze. Outside, cars drove by the house intermittently, while the glow of the moon illuminated the roadway.
I was keenly aware of all this because I couldn’t sleep a wink.
My insomnia was understandable. Hours earlier, I’d returned from a trip to the other side of the globe. My internal clock told me it was 1 PM, not 1 AM. This was no time for sleep.
But there was more than jet lag keeping me awake.
For I was 10 years old, and I had just traveled abroad for the first time. In particular, I’d spent three weeks in China with my family.
Vacationing in a place so radically different from the environs I’d known was jarring. By the end of the trip, the disparity was playing tricks on my mind.
I had begun to think that the existence I had before boarding that flight across the Pacific was an illusion. That the life I’d remembered in America wasn’t real.
But once I got off that return flight, everything was still there. The city lights. My grandparents. Our house. Our dog.
It was all a bit much for me to process. So, I went to my bedroom and cried. Then, I tried in vain to fall asleep.
I hadn’t thought much of this particular night until recently. But now, it’s top of mind.
For after a lost year where our world was upended by a microscopic virus, change is again in the air. Our path out of the pandemic is clearly illuminated. And a return to the familiar awaits on the other side.
No, things won’t ever really be the same. Many have lost loved ones. Businesses have gone under. And there’s plenty that we’ll still do virtually after the health emergency recedes.
But there is plenty from the “before times” that will be returning. In-person events. Family barbecues. Nights out with friends.
And as we wade back into these experiences, there’s a good chance we’ll end up overwhelmed. Just like I did the night I returned from China.
Why is re-entry so clunky? Why is it so hard to reembrace the familiar?
A lot has to do with the underlying system.
What we call the familiar is actually an elaborate social and physical ecosystem. It’s the sights, sounds, and smells around us. But it’s also the paths we traverse, the people we associate with, and the norms that we follow.
When things are going well, we take much of this for granted. There’s no need to fuss about it, or even to notice it.
But if this ecosystem is taken away from us, we suddenly realize how fragile our assumptions were. And we need to work to get our sense of stability back.
Take domestic travel as an example. For many, crisscrossing United States has long felt ubiquitous. It was easy to hop a flight from Phoenix to Pittsburgh or to road trip from Charlotte to Chicago without missing a beat. The airports looked similar, the highway signs were uniform and there were ample hotel and restaurant brands along the route that we were comfortable with.
Much of this familiarity can be tied to two pieces of legislation.
One — the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956 — built a national highway network. The other — the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 — effectively allowed airlines to do the same in the skies.
Providing a uniform way to get from Point A to Point B changed the way we think about mobility. Assuming we had the money and the time, we could head anywhere. And we wouldn’t need to worry about poor road conditions, inadequate lodging, or having to stop at a zillion airports along the way.
For years, nothing truly threatened that sense of travel freedom. The 9/11 attacks required us to beef up airport security, and surging gas prices have at times made road trips untenable. But despite those hurdles, we had ample opportunities to continue our journey unimpeded.
It took the pandemic to shatter that stability.
Now, to be clear, the interstates never shut down during the health crisis. Neither did airports. But traveling became much more burdensome.
Several states enacted quarantine requirements for travelers. Restaurants and hotels reduced services to follow health guidelines. And stay-at-home orders strongly discouraged travel for a time.
With so little peace of mind, many of us stopped traveling. It was too risky and too burdensome. For the first time in my life, I didn’t leave my own state for a year. In fact, I only left town once during that time.
But now, with vaccinations ramping up, many are looking to hit the road again. Many others are hoping to take to the skies.
These aspiring travelers are looking for a release. They’re seeking an escape from the horrors of the recent trip around the sun. They’re requesting a return to what they once knew.
But such desires might prove elusive. At least for now.
For while the highways and airports look similar to how they once did, the communities they connect do not. Our nation is still on the path back to the familiar, and the map is dotted with communities facing that same uneasiness.
A change of scenery won’t change that fact or speed up the timeline. We need something more to get there.
As I lay awake in my bedroom that warm summer night, I tried to will myself back to normalcy.
It would take me a week to get there. A week of groggily reacclimating with the environs I’d previously known so well.
I think the same perseverance is needed now, as we seek to reclaim what was once familiar.
For ecosystems can’t re-emerge in an instant. They take time to reboot.
And the ecosystem powering our way of life is extra fragile. It’s built on trust and human connection — both of which have been under siege lately.
The responsibility to get this project off the ground falls on our shoulders.
It’s on us to be deliberate and empathetic, as we work our way out of this forced hibernation. It’s our responsibility to resist the delusions of a quick fix. And it’s our charge to roll up our sleeves and rebuild connections.
This work won’t be glamorous, and it won’t seem particularly fun. But it will make our ecosystem stronger, and it will make us more resilient.
With patience, faith, and determination, we can do more than reclaim what we once had. We can build something even better.
So, let’s get to it.