One of this year’s most popular trends, is the #10YearChallenge. Everywhere you go on social media, you find people posting side-by-side photographs of themselves ten years apart. The posts are fun and interesting. We can see how much we’ve changed in the ten-year span and be horrified, amused, or acquiescent.

But, yeah, everybody except Dorian Gray changes over a decade. I’ve got a new challenge for you. I call it the #2YearLockdownChallenge.

It was just about two years ago when we first began hearing about “the Corona virus” and then COVID-19. Words like “lockdown” and “shelter in place” accompanied another, scarier word: pandemic! We had faced challenges before, but nothing like this. Another word became commonplace: Unprecedented.

It’s been a long road, but we’re finally coming out the other side. Those of us that are fully vaccinated are finally shedding masks and going out in public again. The World Health Organization has said the acute phase of the pandemic could end this year, if about 70 percent of the world gets vaccinated.

But COVID has taken its toll, not just on those who were sick or died, but on everyone. The stress, the fear, the bizarre circumstances have changed us. We are not, and never will be, the people we were in March of 2020.

So on to the #2YearLockdownChallenge. Show us photos of yourself before COVID and now. Is there a difference? Did you stop dying your hair? Did you quit wearing pants—forever? Are you more feral? Did the hardship age you?

This is mine. The hair is still long but the face is definitely fatter. The smile seems forced, though I was on vacation in Hawaii. That’s what two years of pandemic did to me. Now it’s your turn.

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