For almost 2 years– 675 days, to be exact– my family and I did all we could to keep safe from COVID.

We isolated from the people we loved.

We socially distanced when we needed to go out.

We masked, using high-quality masks.

We avoided extra activity, including (at times) playdates and extracurricular sports for our kids.

We washed our hands thoroughly and often.

Most importantly, we all got vaccinated as soon as we could, and my husband and I got boosted.

We thought we were doing all of those things to stay safe from COVID, but it turned out that all of those preparations still weren’t enough avoid it. In hindsight, we would have had to do something drastic, like quit our jobs and home-school our kids, which would have had other repercussions.

Our preparations WERE enough to keep us from getting sick for long. All of us had mild symptoms. (In fact, my daughter got a cold a week later, that I then caught at the tail end of my COVID symptoms, and the cold is worse.) I am endlessly grateful to vaccines and mask availability and our own good habits.

My point is that you can prepare, but you cannot control. It’s like preparing for bad weather– you can put up the storm doors, gas up the generator, and stock up on canned goods, but you have no control over whether the hurricane throws a tree onto your roof or the power goes out for a week. When I think of it that way, it’s funny that I ever thought we could avoid COVID. It’s a powerful storm that has mutated and grown over time. COVID is not just the weather anymore. It’s the very atmosphere we live in. And thinking that you can avoid the atmosphere is laughable.

However, the preparation is still essential. To continue the storm metaphor, the tree fell on our roof, but we stayed relatively safe.

This realization is something of a relief. In the future, when the atmosphere changes, whether it’s due to disease or or democratic upheaval or actual climate change, I’m going to remember the lesson it took me 675 days to learn.

When the atmosphere changes, I’ll prepare and adapt. But I’m also going to let go of the illusion of control.