ATLANTA — Lately, I’ve been thinking about the Olympics.
This time last year, I was interviewing athletes, covering U.S. trials, preparing for the spotlight of the world to hit the 2020 Summer Games. I was spending days of my workweek. They had devoted years of their lives.
And then, the Games were gone. An afterthought, really, as the world became something none of us had ever seen.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about all the stories these past 12 months we didn’t get to tell … and not just Olympic dreams.
How many trips didn’t we take?
How many family gatherings didn’t we attend?
How many life moments didn’t we experience to the fullest degree?
So much in our lives has changed, it’s easy to forget how we thought our lives would unfold.
On the southern tip of Atlanta, Hartsfield-Jackson is still the world’s busiest airport. But with 400,000 fewer flights per week than this time a year ago.
That’s millions of vacations and business trips not taken. And funerals, celebrations, and weddings unattended. Even within Atlanta, events were cancelled - from Hawks games to Dragon Con.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the stories we told instead. About neighbors connecting from afar. About ballets and concerts still attended, birthdays and big moments still celebrated.
I think of the patience required of all of us, as we squint to imagine a future with COVID-19 in the past. Even the rescheduled Olympics remain uncertain.
I also think of stories that go far beyond our experiences.
In February 2020 I was driving across Georgia for a special report about health care, interviewing those who were struggling in some way. Those interviews never aired. Months later, I drove across Georgia again to find families grieving unexpected loss, a hospital forced to close, and counties that had already felt forgotten – and now felt even more so. These are stories altered, still badly in need of telling.
That’s what I’ve been thinking about as one year hits: the many ways our worlds can change, how much we can’t control, and how much we still can.