It’s too easy to list the things COVID-19, which began overwhelming the United States five years ago this month, took from us: celebrations, schooling, wages, travel, lives. For many, the pre-vaccine days were a devastatingly isolating time. Plenty of families, businesses, and institutions have yet to fully recover; some never will.

Yet, as freelance writer and former 5280 editor Lindsey B. King details in “The Top 7 Ways the Pandemic Changed Colorado (Maybe Forever),” the pandemic also showed our ability to evolve in positive directions during a time of unprecedented turmoil. Some workers have kept the flexibility they gained in how and where they do their jobs. Expanded outdoor dining areas that help restaurants cover their rents became permanent. Medical professionals embraced telehealth technologies that make care easier to access in rural communities.

5280 March 2025
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As I reflect on my own pandemic experience—influenced by the privileges of having a job I could do remotely, a comfortable home, and a supportive, fun partner—my sense of loss is tinged with gratitude. My husband and I used our cleared social calendar to tackle house projects that continue to bring me joy. We constructed raised garden beds that provide our family with plump tomatoes, cheap basil, and endless zucchini every summer. We installed glass shelves across a sunny window and started a houseplant collection that’s still (mostly) thriving. We built a Little Free Library that connected us with neighbors who became friends.

Most significantly, though, we joined the swell of Coloradans who grew their families in 2021, when the state became one of only a handful to record more births than in 2019. Having our son that January meant spending our first moments with him in masks. Introductions to family and friends were tainted by fear and anxiety. But my husband was still working from home during my maternity leave, and I’ll forever be thankful for his help over lunch breaks and for the time he spent bonding with our baby instead of commuting.

I hope that as you look back, with a half-decade of distance, you’re able to balance the negative impacts of living through a pandemic with course alterations that were for the better. At the very least, this issue is full of reminders about just how far we’ve come.