I walked out of my office a year ago, on March 11, 2020. This week, for the first time, I went back.

My glasses were still sitting by the phone, and a legal pad was open, as if I had just stepped out for lunch. A cup, now dry, and that day’s newspaper still sat on the desk.

The yellowed newspaper said the Coachella festival had been postponed until the fall because of the spreading coronavirus. President Xi Jinping had visited the city of Wuhan in a “show of confidence” that the national emergency in China could soon be over. President Trump said again that the virus “will go away.”

On that last day in the office, we had a meeting with a group of local government officials. No one wore masks. Everyone shook hands without thinking and then laughed awkwardly at the risk we’d carelessly taken.

I haven’t shaken anyone’s hand since then.

It’s so hard to remember what was going through my mind at that time. I know I expected to be back in the office in a few weeks. The virus was scary but still theoretical: A grand total of 31 people had died in the United States from it. Today, COVID-19 has killed more than 529,000 people in this country.

My return to the office this week (just for a visit, of course) was partly an acknowledgment that something is finally changing: that the California surge is receding, that millions of people have been vaccinated in the state and that (God and variants willing) the worst of this may soon be over.

But I also went because I thought it might help me remember what life was like before the virus came, which might in turn help me prepare for life ahead. I thought maybe seeing what was on my desk and in my computer and my cabinet drawers would help me reconnect with my pre-pandemic existence.

Because the return to normal, I think, is not going to be fast or smooth.

Compared with many people, I’ve had an easy year. I have no young kids in school; I live with my wife in enough space that we don’t have to sit in the same room all day. We kept our jobs. Of course I know people who’ve been laid off, gotten sick, been hospitalized, even some who have died: but I and most of the people around me have been relatively sheltered.

Will we ever go back to hugging and shaking hands, or will we wear masks and keep our distance in perpetuity?

Once there is enough vaccine for everyone (my turn hasn’t yet come up), will we still work at home or go to the office? When will we use public transportation? When can I fly, and can I see my father for his 90th birthday, after not seeing him since November 2019?

For society as a whole, it is going to be a time of anxiety and rebuilding. There are 9.5 million fewer jobs in the U.S. now than there were a year ago. Many children are floundering socially, emotionally and especially academically after a year at home.

There’s “cave syndrome” to worry about, according to some psychiatrists: people who will be unwilling to emerge even when it becomes safe to do so because they’ve grown too accustomed to isolation. There’s a potential crisis of “prolonged bereavement disorder” among people who have been unable to grieve fully during this lost year.

Of course, just as it did after 9/11, ordinary life will eventually reassert itself. Our commutes, our paychecks, our children and grandchildren, our weekend plans, our jobs will fill any void.

Slowly but surely, we will work through the trauma of COVID and put it in the past.

My next anniversary is Sunday, March 14, when it will have been 365 days since my friend Simon and I had lunch together in Pasadena. That was the last time I ate indoors in a restaurant. We were the only patrons.

I’m looking forward to eating out again.

Nicholas Goldberg is an associate editor and op-ed columnist for the Los Angeles Times.