Hug a family member or a pet.

“When I arrived at the curb in front of my parents’ house, I jumped out of my car, left my purse and groceries behind, and ran toward the front door, which my mom was already opening, with Dad close behind. If it wouldn’t have broken her back, I would have jumped into Mom’s arms like a toddler finally released after ten hours in daycare. Instead, I held her as tightly as I could. Then I crossed the threshold into the house, unmasked — something else I haven’t done for over a year — to hug my dad. In that one moment, I felt like I had won the lottery, like I was endangering us all, like I was breaking several major laws, and like I was doing something completely unremarkable — an activity I’d participated in, without fanfare, countless times.”

“Today’s hug was another memorable one - I felt like I was learning how to hug her all over again, remembering our height difference, the smell of her shampoo, the way we cling onto each other and it somehow makes everything better on both ends of the hug. Even with a mask, it felt natural and special, and I couldn’t imagine worrying about catching COVID from this encounter. In that moment, no thoughts or fears could stop me from technically taking a risk for my health that was so overshadowed by joy that I barely even noticed it.”

“I feel amazing right now, I hugged my mum twice for the first time in forever, I can't remember the last time we hugged. I still live with my parents but we've never been the type of family to show emotion or talk about feelings or show affection or anything like that. I've been wanting to make it normal to hug each other for a long time now because I know she'd love it, today's her birthday and I hugged her for about 20 seconds straight [...] I've always wanted to go and randomly hug her but for some reason always felt awkward about it, even today I was thinking all day about how I should do it, and I'm so glad I did and hope I can keep doing it.”