Retirees and the elderly might be feeling as if “I know I don’t have that many years left,” said Jerrold Lee Shapiro, a professor of counseling psychology at Santa Clara University who has researched retirement. “The hourglass has been turned over. I know more years have passed than I will have in the future. I’m in my 60s or my 70s or whatever, and covid is taking those years away. I’m not going to use them.”

Experts say older people often fared better than their younger counterparts, displaying resilience born out of decades of life experience and wisdom. Many people pivoted, finding joy and meaning in simple activities: creating art, planting thousands of flowers or reading to a grandchild over Zoom. But a feeling still persists: the lingering sense that things weren’t supposed to be this way. As the world enters a third year of life with the coronavirus, we asked these people to reflect on what they’ve lost and gained in the past two years.