Several weeks ago, soon after the mask mandate was lifted by Gov. Jay Inslee, I was having dinner with a dear friend. It was the first time we had seen each other in several months, which was unusual for us.

Before the pandemic began and during that first summer, we continued with our normal routine of texting often and taking walks, masked and distanced.

But somehow all that slowly began to diminish. Our routine became working and coming home to our families and not really interacting with others outside of that routine. During dinner she mentioned that it was difficult coming out of the...