[Lifestyle] Covid-19 Was a Wake-Up Call, Leading Many to Make Lifestyle and Career Changes

[#Drennn.]

People of all ages are emerging from a year of introspection with new perspective; ‘It gave me that nudge’

Sarah Smalls, center, with, clockwise from left, her grandchildren and her husband, Curtis, at home on Wednesday; she said the pandemic pushed her to change some of her priorities.
PHOTO: DEE DWYER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Sarah Smalls is tiptoeing back into her old routine, now that she is fully vaccinated against Covid-19. She hosted Easter dinner. Her adult son now stops over for indoor visits. She and her husband plan to travel again.

But like many other newly vaccinated Americans, Ms. Smalls, who is 74 years old and lives in Lorton, Va., isn’t seeking to merely unfreeze and restart her pre-pandemic life.

Ms. Smalls says the person who went into the pandemic isn’t the same person coming out. She is emerging with new goals, priorities and concerns. The long pause that forced both isolation and introspection has been a catalyst to change course.

Ms. Smalls intends to finally learn how to swim. She wants to take weekend trips with her best friends. And most notably, she won’t go back to the frenetic pace she kept for years while raising three grandchildren and working at a nonprofit. During the pandemic, she left her staff job to do consulting for the group, a change she said she hadn’t expected to make for several more years.

“As the kids say, ‘I’m gonna do me,’ ” Ms. Smalls says. “It took a pandemic to come along and show me that you don’t have a whole lot of time to do what you want to do. It gave me that nudge, and it was a hard nudge.”