Has there ever been a point when you could catch up on everything because the chaos of the world finally stood still to accommodate your to-do list?

Special 7o 7he Washington Post

I admit I felt a quiet thrill a few months ago as, one canceled appoint ment after another, the pandemic cleared my schedule. Permission to skip a dental cleaning" I’d gladly take it.

As spring wore on, however, I be gan to worry. 5outine health care can wait awhile, but not forever, and there are some procedures that simply don’t lend themselves to a telehealth visit.

%ut reopening doesn’t feel entirely like relief. 7he coronavirus has derailed dreams ± weddings, travel and semes ters abroad ± as well as more mundane plans, such as home repairs, work dead lines and professional conferences. *et ting back on track in fits and starts and, eventually, a crush of makeup dates comes with its own disorienting kind of stress. We have entered the reschedul ing phase of the pandemic Nothing is happening when it’s supposed to, but it all has to happen sometime.

7ake the messier aspects of life, for example, the matters in which people need legal intervention. When court rooms shut down across the country this spring, countless people were left wait ing to settle disputes, finalize divorces and hold hearings on issues from custo dy to child support. In North Carolina, for example, all Mury trials are still on hold until at least Aug. . I asked J.D. DuPuy, a partner at a firm in Charlotte, what summer and fall will look like for lawyers and their clients as the courts reopen. “It may,” he offered, “be a bit of a nightmare.”

Speaking of nightmares

Wilkins said, “because so many people were messaging her on Instagram for appointments.”

0y husband and I carefully plan our work travel around each other to make sure a parent is always home, but whoops, my spring speaking gigs got moved to the fall and may soon get moved to next spring ± I’m not sure. 2ur son, a high school senior, is applying to colleges in a few months, although we don’t know yet when or even if he can visit the remaining cam puses on his list. With schools across the country building new academic cal endars from scratch, do the terms “fall break” and “spring break” even mean anything anymore" (If you were hoping to reschedule your family’s canceled spring or summer travel, good luck fig uring out when to go.) %ecause there’s no predicting exactly how things will look virus wise in a few months, so much tentative rescheduling may end up being re rescheduled.

In the most wishful part of my imag ination, I picture America’s reopening as the triumphant final scene in an as teroid movie, when citizens stream out of their homes and into the streets and fields, clapping and embracing, faces turned toward the sky, now clear of the deadly shadow. In reality, trying to restart the parts of life that have been on hold because of the pandemic feels more like doing a thousand piece Mig saw puzzle while the picture on the box keeps changing.

0aybe, though, it’s helpful to ask +as there ever been a point when you could catch up on everything because the chaos of the world finally stood still to accommodate your to do list" I don’t know anyone who has lived exactly the life they once planned, right down to each perfectly timed event. 0ost of us have had our timetables scrambled be fore. We’ve adMusted our path forward as necessary, and we can do it again. We’ll Must need to swap pen for pencil as we make plans.

I’ve been thinking lately about the birth of my daughter 4 years ago. Due at the end of January, she arrived in stead a month early, in December. At first, when my husband and I realized that the baby and I would be coming home from the hospital on Christmas Day, I panicked. In getting our young son excited about the holidays, I’d put so much emphasis on the anticipatory fun of Christmas Eve, and I couldn’t believe we’d miss spending it together. 7hen it occurred to me 7oddlers can’t read calendars. A holiday can be when ever we say it is. So we called the day we came home “Christmas Eve” and celebrated Christmas on the 6th.

As Americans find ourselves with a pileup of deferred milestones to mark ± a heavily concentrated season of overdue laughing, crying and one day even hugging ± we’re going to need to accept that timing matters less than we used to think.

Perhaps the greatest upside to put ting back together all that fell apart is the clarity gained in the meantime. Waiting, whether we wanted the wait or not, provides time to think. 7hat’s why people say “/et’s sleep on it” before making a big purchase. It’s why you’re supposed to count to before saying something impulsive. As many times as we’ve counted to since all this be gan, we ought to have a sense of what’s truly worth our time and effort (fine, I’ll get my teeth cleaned) and what might as well stay canceled for good. If you’re dragging your feet about setting up the lunch meeting you were supposed to have with your boss in 0arch, maybe there’s a reason.

+aven’t we had plenty of practice by now dividing everything into essential and nonessential" 7his system should continue to serve us well if we use it to do more than simply resume what we paused. 7hen we won’t Must be resched uling our lives. We’ll be reinventing them ± a prospect that’s thrilling in its own way.