Thanks to my birthday celebration in mid-May, where I dined at three restaurants in two days, I discovered something extraordinary: Life in Colorado appears to be returning to normal.

Parking was hard to find. Tables were full — and weren’t blocked off. Seats at the bar were taken.

But I will say this: I miss the 6-foot rule for tables. When you’re overweight, squeezing between tables to go to the restroom is an embarrassment. Even my normal-size friends told me they haven’t missed saying “Excuse me” just to back out their chairs.

I walked into my condo the other day, and several people in the lobby said, “You don’t need a mask anymore.” In addition, more than two people at a time can get on the elevator, a rule imposed last year as the pandemic claimed more lives in Colorado.

Oh, how depressing those restrictions felt.

And I can’t wait to post a photo on Facebook without the ree-dick refrain, “Where’s your mask?”

Last summer, former Secretary of State Wayne Williams, a Republican, and Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat, took a picture together after dining in Briargate in Colorado Springs.

“Good to visit with Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser who earlier this summer won a unanimous Supreme Court decision defending Coloradans’ right to vote and my actions as the Secretary of State,” Williams wrote, referring to the “faithless elector” case after the 2016 election.

“Cool,” attorney Eliot Fladen responded, “but where are your masks?”

That elicited a variety of pro- and anti- mask comments, and this sensible remark from Williams: “In our pockets or hands. We took them off for the picture.”

D’oh!

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on May 13 amended its guidance that for fully vaccinated Americans, they no longer recommended masks indoors or outdoors, including in crowds

“We have all longed for this moment when we can get back to some sense of normalcy,” CDC director Rachel Walensky said at a White House briefing.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis also lifted Colorado’s mask mandate and according to CBS4’s Shaun Boyd, “wasted no time hosting a mask-free event.”

Polis on May 14 mingled at the Governor’s Mansion with Cafecito, a group of Latina professionals that has been networking for three decades. The gathering with Polis marked Cafecito’s first in-person event in 427 days.

“Just to get to hang out and have fun, it’s wonderful getting our lives back,” said Polis, who “worked his way through a crowd, shaking hands, hugging friends, and celebrating the end of the statewide mask mandate,” CBS reported.

It’s so nice to see maskless faces at Rockies games and Red Rocks concerts.

And that all of this is coming at the same time lilacs are blooming and tulips are proudly standing guard in yard after yard makes the mask-free even more welcoming.

Polis last July issued a statewide mandate requiring Coloradans to wear a mask in indoor public spaces, but we were donning them before that.

I’ve spent a fortune on masks. I quit buying the expensive ones after leaving them everywhere and then I relied on those fog-up-your-glasses blue masks available at convenience stores. My good friend Stacy Kluckman in Colorado Springs sewed me three masks in March 2020, when I broke Polis’ curfew and slipped to El Paso County for a week because I didn’t want to be alone.

What surprises me is that while I have lost a number of face coverings I still have Stacy’s. Maybe I should put them in a safe-deposit box. Who knows? One day they might be collector’s items. But for now, I’ll keep them in my purse because it wouldn’t surprise me if we have to return to our crazy masked lives.

Stacy, by the way, made plenty of masks and always wore hers but thought the order was phooey. While she and her husband, Pat, were vacationing in Florida last Thanksgiving, a retired doctor scoffed at the mask mandates. Meanwhile, another doctor, Anthony Fauci, was saying a nationwide mask order might be necessary.

My family wore masks last August for a wedding in Spearfish, S.D. We were cautious because a motorcycle rally in nearby Sturgis earlier that month was considered a superspreader. Afterward, health experts believed the 500,000-person rally played a role in a coronavirus outbreak in the Upper Midwest.

We were relieved that the only ones who got sick at the wedding were those who drank to the Porcelain gods.

I returned to South Dakota last month when my Mom had back surgery. The hospital, of course, was strict with its mask policy, and I had to get a new fresh blue mask every time I entered.

But the signs on business doors in my hometown of Vermillion were less restrictive. “Masks expected by city resolution out of respect for your health and others.”

I still saw plenty of masks, and I think that’s because Vermillion is one of the more moderate bastions in the state.

Maybe the locals took heed of a haunting story that The Washington Post wrote last December about the pandemic’s impact on the town of Mitchell, S.D., home of the Corn Palace.

“In a state where the Republican governor, Kristi L. Noem, has defied calls for a statewide mask mandate even as cases hit record levels, many in this rural community an hour west of Sioux Falls ignored the virus for months, not bothering with masks or social distancing. Restaurants were packed. Big weddings and funerals went on as planned.

“Then people started dying.”

Heading to an out-of-state wedding in August and to Albuquerque for Thanksgiving, after the New Mexico governor had just shut down the state because infections were increasing, clearly shows I was loosey-goosey with restrictions.

But I have mad respect for the people I am seeing on Facebook these days who are having joyous reunions after being apart for so long.

I have to admit that I still am confused by the rules. Three days after the governor’s fête I stopped by the Starbucks across from Arapahoe High School. All the customers wore masks, as did the staff. One woman asked if the tables were open to sit at and a barista said no.

We’ll see how all this plays out.

In the meantime, thanks to my pals who took me out to eat for my birthday this year: Josh Miller at Capital Grille, Deb Goeken at Cherry Creek Grille, and Bob and Gigi Pielsticker, at 240 Union. And thanks to everyone who sent birthday greetings.

I turn 65 next year and I’m hoping I can celebrate that milestone with a crowd, like when I turned 50. Even Denver’s then-mayor, John Hickenlooper, stopped by in 2007. Hick’s a U.S. senator now, but I hope he marks his calendar next year for May 14.