Let’s agree to stop using the phrase “get back to normal” about life post-pandemic

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve heard the phrase “get back to normal” as a way of referring to the global pandemic a LOT. Let’s “get back to normal.” When we “return to normal life.” Even “adjust to the new normal.” But across the board I’ve heard this phrase in relation to the idea of returning to life the way it was pre-pandemic.

First of all, the pandemic is not over. In fact, cases were higher in January of 2022 than they ever were in 2020 or 2021 in America, though those numbers have decreased here in February (SOURCE: CDC COVID Data Tracker),. Yes, the severity of those cases might be a factor to consider but I’m not necessarily here to analyze the data other than to say the PANDEMIC IS NOT OVER.

Ahem.

Now back to my original point. Even assuming that when we say “get back to normal” post-pandemic, we are acknowledging the fact that we are not yet post-pandemic, I am not a fan of that phrase. “Adjust to the new normal” is a bit better. But any phrase that sounds like “get back to normal” or “return to living life” bothers me. Why? Hint: it’s right there in the fact that the phrase “adjusting to the new normal” is a bit closer to okay.

Back at the beginning of 2020, when we thought the pandemic might be nothing more than a few-week inconvenience (oh, you sweet summer children…), the idea of “getting back to normal” was achievable. Fathomable. A few weeks was a detour around brief road construction with an estimated completion date.

Now, it is 2022. We are two years into a global pandemic. More than a million lives have been lost. And in those two years, we have not stood still. Think of it this way: If you go on vacation to another country, you return with excellent vacation stories. If you live in another country for a couple years, you might come back with another language and a sense of homesickness because the country you are returning to two years later is no longer home. You made a new one. Your normal is Italy or Egypt or Peru, even if before that point, you lived in America all your life. You’re not returning to normal.

Normal has long been lost.

Though we resist, time keeps moving. We keep changing. Not all at once. I think about how stalactites form in caves as water drip…drip…drips from the tip so that the stalactite keeps streeeeetching for the cave floor beneath it. Even if we feel in the day to day as if so little changes, those small drops of water add up over enough time. And the pandemic hasn’t lasted just weeks, but years. Even if we feel as though we’re standing still in the midst of this single moment of “PANDEMIC,” there’s still a life pulsing and transforming around us and within us.

I am not the same person I was at the beginning of the pandemic. Even if there hadn’t been a pandemic, the mere passage of two years makes a statement of that sort feel more like “um…obvious much?” The difference this time around, I think, is because we neglected to pay attention to the smaller ways in which we’ve changed through this whole experience.

Think about the small choices you made and how they impacted you.

Did the requirement of working from home during the pandemic lead you to realize how much you liked a more relaxing ease into the workday in the morning? Perhaps you utilized that time you weren’t using to commute to read instead? And you read nonfiction that made you try on new ideas or new habits?

Did the stress of the pandemic force you to slow down so you could stop feeling overwhelmed? So you stopped writing so fervently? And when you went back to writing, you were still exhausted, you tried going slower, only to learn this writing way was better? And now you were able to tackle a book you hadn’t been able to do before.

Think of the great resignation. The transition to picking-up groceries without leaving your car or easier ways of ordering out. Think of the fact that if companies aren’t going completely virtual, many are going to at least partially virtual.

And then, think about how our interpretations of the world changed. As we watched people around us react in the midst of the pandemic, not to mention the conversations around race and diversity and politics over the last couple years, we also changed how we think about other people. How we interact with other people because of those conversations. Maybe you learned someone wasn’t who you thought they were because, under pressure, they became someone else entirely.

And frankly, just think of the life events that can occur in two years. In this two year span, my grandmother went into memory care, which turned my world upside down in so many ways. My friends gave birth to children. Others were married. Old relationships ended and new ones started.

We are not the same people we were two years ago. There is no “going back to normal” because our definition of normal has changed.

Perhaps you remember how, at the beginning of the pandemic, as many of us were transitioning into remote work and remote school and all sorts of uncertainty, how we were encouraged to check in with one another. Change is hard even on the best of days, and this wasn’t one of them. Now as we try to pick up the parts of our life left behind, maybe going back into the office or going out to eat or visiting friend groups we’ve missed, we expect to be able to flip a switch.

But we can’t.

It’s not a switch we can flick to illuminate the living room. It’s instead the rising of a sun over the longest night. The rays creep across the horizon and edge the darkness back, though the darkness still seems to reign over most of the sky. It will be hours before the sun emerges entirely. But it is rising.

Whatever our futures hold, it’s not normal in the definition we used to use. It’s perhaps a “new normal” that we are establishing, but that’s the key. This is a transition. And because the pandemic is CLEARLY NOT OVER, it’s not even the whole future. Things are going to keep changing and anything resembling a future version of normal is a moving target.

All I want to make sure I say is that in the midst of these things, we need to give people grace. The same grace we offered as the pandemic arose. Change is hard in any direction. There is no normal to return to. Just another change.

It feels almost tacky to talk about the “good things” that came out of a global pandemic.

And truly, it’s no wonder. Have you seen the way the world has been devastated by COVID-19? If I tried to list all the bad things that have happened in relation to the pandemic since 2020 through still to present day, I think we would all feel a little worse off. I would point out a bunch you already know plus maybe point out other bad things you’ve never even heard of. Which…let’s be honest…would all just be a bummer. I don’t know how that would be productive, at least here in this blog.

Assuming you already have plenty good knowledge about how “bad” the pandemic has been (and it’s a pandemic; that’s basically it’s MO), and in the effort to bring more light to the world, I wanted to have a different conversation today. A conversation about what the pandemic has changed for the better. If not in the world, then at least in myself.

After all, it’s the thing I know best and even I don’t claim a perfect understanding of myself.

The day my office announced we would be working from home for a while, it felt like a snow day. At that point, I was just under four years into my career after graduating college and so it was natural to relate the disturbance to routine in such a way. I doubt I was alone in that.

But again, like most people, the snow day became the slow boil of anxiety in the pit of my stomach. Days upon days at home, stressing about how to get groceries, stressing about the world, stressing, stressing, stressing…

Sorry, I think I’m underemphasizing how bad it felt to be in the middle of a world on fire in 2020. My memory is probably trying to protect me against remembering that trash-fire of a year.

Two years later, we’re still struggling with a pandemic. Well, no one claimed a pandemic was an easy problem. And despite spending a significant time within my own four walls in an admittedly smallish place, I am not the same person I was at the beginning of the pandemic. Because even when, in the day to day, we feel like we’re standing still, the planet still rotates hastily beneath us. We can’t help but continue changing.

So! In an effort to create something positive that illuminates the points of light in the world, I wanted to point out some good things that have come out of existing in a world in which a global pandemic is also taking place, at least in my own life.

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1. Confidence in my own personal style.

Maybe it comes out of being a late-bloomer in the style department (and adamant non-jean wearer for longer than was reasonable), but I have always spent a lot of my day-to-day life paying attention to what people around me are wearing. I wouldn’t say I’m concerned with fashion, but I’m also not un-interested. I like putting together the perfect outfit. I have a more pairs of boots than a reasonable person should. But pre-pandemic, a certain amount of space in my mind was always being spent comparing what I was wearing to what someone else was wearing.

And no matter my confidence, I always came up short.

Spending more time at home and not seeing what people around me are wearing has allowed me the space to stop comparing. To wear clothes that are comfy and place me in my own skin. To wear clothes that make me feel put together and like myself. It’s enabled me the space to curate a personal style for myself, rather than expecting those I encounter in my day-to-day to curate that style for me.

2. Fewer vacation discussions

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I am definitely a homebody. I’m not against the idea of traveling, but it takes a lot of factors to make traveling worth it for me.

But being out in the world means having a lot of casual conversations and having a lot of casual conversations always seems to come back to vacations. Where are you traveling or where did you just travel? So when I say I’m taking a vacation and people ask, “Where are you going?” I can’t help but feel just a little bit smaller. Less.

Even though I don’t want to travel, not right now, not given where I’m at in life, I feel like I’m missing something. And sure, it’s an experience I’m not having yet, but the conversation makes me think I’m doing something actively wrong.

Fewer vacation discussions means that I’ve been able to have the space to consider how I really feel about traveling. Which is the fact that I want to do it someday. But right now, I don’t. And that’s okay.

3. It doesn’t feel like I’m constantly on fire! (AKA I actually have time to complete home tasks…)

Millennials are often (or were often, I hope; I’m on the younger end and even I’m in my late-twenties) made fun of for using the phrase “adulting” in reference to whatever tasks or chores they are responsible for completing in their adult life. But there’s something I think these naysayers may be forgetting when they speak less of millennials struggling with “adulting:”

You know some of us are single, right?

Like, I can’t split up the chores with a significant other. If I drop the ball, no one else picks it up. It seems like such a small thing until you have to do 12 hours of work and it’s not like someone else is making sure you eat and also your cat is counting on you. There’s no back-up. Even something as simple as keeping up on vacuuming feels like taking on a second full-time job.

However, working from home in the midst of the pandemic means that I can use my lunch hour to take out the trash and vacuum my living room and hand wash some dishes. Plus eat! Suddenly, it’s like I’m not constantly on fire! It’s amazing! You mean some people don’t live with a constant low level anxiety of all the things they should be doing?

It’s magical.

4. More time to read

I read seriously a lot. Since graduating college, I don’t think there’s been a year I’ve read fewer than 40 books. I like aiming around 52, if the ebbs and flows of life don’t suggest another goal is more appropriate. It’s a solid number.

And then, in 2020, I read 76 books. And in 2021, I read 114.

I…just…what.

Because I’m not spending time commuting or running into stores to pick up a few things (thank you, Internet!), I have so much more time in my life. Time I’ve largely been filling with books. It’s allowed me to read more widely than I used to and experience books I may not have picked up just because I don’t have time to read all the books ever written ever.

5. Falling in LOVE with boxing and hiking

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. And it does. And also, occasionally COMPLETELY FURIOUS. When the pandemic started, it seemed fun to take a couple weeks off from working out. I think it took about a month before I realized I was willing to give up almost anything to go back to boxing.

When I got vaccinated, it was the only thing I was looking forward to doing again.

In the meantime, when I couldn’t go to my boxing studio, I started going hiking and biking in the parks surrounding me. And hiking especially became this beautiful adventure where I could pause in the midst of silence and just breathe. And think, if I wanted to. Or not think, if I needed that instead. I learned it was an empty space where I could exist and when my mind is allowed to wander, I’m able to daydream and create better as a writer.

The pandemic allowed me to realize how both these things are absolutely essential to my being. I must box. I must go out in nature. I’m not me if I don’t do these things, which was a revelation I don’t know that I would have had without the pandemic.

6. Slowing down my writing habits

I’ve mentioned this a bit before but in 2019, I set the goal to work on my writing for 500 hours and achieved it. So, being the ridiculously (and sometimes unhealthily) ambitious person I am, I increased that goal to 550 hours in 2020. And then…as you know…the pandemic happened.

At the very beginning of things, I thought the pandemic would allow me more time to write. But pre-pandemic, I almost exclusively wrote in coffee shops. Writing at home instead was a challenging transition. Plus, you know, pandemic. I was emotionally drained. So I decided to take a break while the pandemic was going on. Figured a couple weeks away wouldn’t take me too off-course from my goal.

But then the pandemic didn’t end.

Looking back, of course it seems foolish to have thought the down-time would last only a couple weeks. I decided I had to face the fact that I needed to learn how to write from home. But then new challenges arose. I realized that so much of my writing depended on the space between writing sessions, as in literally driving from one coffee shop to another. Which was also somewhat gone due to the pandemic. So I had to create new habits. Had to go hiking to brainstorm. Had to learn to write in tiny sprints with lots of breaks. Had to buy a new desk.

And finally, FINALLY, I realized I was pacing my writing too fast. And it was making my writing worse.

In the midst of the pandemic, I realized that I didn’t lack ambition if I decided to take my writing more slowly. In fact, doing so made my writing better. Only the space to experiment in this way finally allowed me to learn that it was okay to take my time with writing.

And it brought back the joy in writing that I had lost in the process.

7. Did you know video games still exist?

I am a gamer. As in, I define periods in my life by what game I was playing at the time. My grandpa passed away during Harvest Moon: Magical Melody. Summer and any time in the car that lasted longer than three minutes was spent playing Pokemon sitting next to my brother. College nights were spent watching Markiplier play Five Nights at Freddy’s on YouTube (while checking the comments for jumpscare time codes).

In fact, most of my media consumption on screens is watching gaming. I spend actual money on Twitch. During the pandemic, I have looked forward to Saturdays because those are dedicated to Among Us games that AlfredoPlays organizes. At boxing, I talk about Dead by Daylight with the owner. From where I’m sitting on the couch drafting this blog, I can count three consoles within my view, even though I own more than that.

But at some point…I had kind of stopped playing video games most of the time.

Playing video games became an unproductive use of my time, a distraction from the limited hours I had to write. Why would I be wasting my precious time on something as unnecessary as games? Even though I loved them?

Did you know that human beings aren’t required to constantly be creating value?

There is value in quiet. There is value in rest. But at some point, I had lost track of that in the midst of relentless ambition that exhausted me. But during the pandemic, I needed a distraction. I picked up the new Animal Crossing game, among others. Because I was lightening up on my crushing need to be constantly writing, I rediscovered the space to participate in needless things. Things you do for you and literally no one else. It meant prioritizing myself, realizing I was a person and not just a machine meant to create.

8. A carefully crafted home to satisfy my greatest dreams

I love interior design. My Pinterest board on the subject is both a sight to behold and a little bit terrifying. My idea of a good time is wandering the home department at Target or making the trek to HomeGoods. And like a lot of people spending a lot more time at home, I decided to spend my money and time on making my home my own little haven.

For a homebody, you think I would have taken on the effort much sooner. And I had! I just stopped holding myself back from dreaming big. Buy the pretty lamp even though it’s expensive! Buy the expensive standing desk; it’s not like you won’t use it!

Basically, I let go of some of the guilt I had spending money on certain things and had fun playing and dreaming in the art of designing my home. I may have a small home, but truly, spending time designing and organizing the space helped me realize it’s all the space I need.

Why have quantity if you can have quality?

9. The ability to take stock of my life

In case it wasn’t clear from the eight items in this list before, working from home and spending a lot more time at home in general gave me more space to think and take stock of the life I existed within. It gave me the space to realize I wanted to decorate my home, to go hiking, to play more video games. It gave me the space to think about what I was doing in my life and what I wanted to keep doing and what I wanted to change.

10. And realize I’m actually really happy

And this…this was the revelation.

I think that, in all lives if not just mine, we spend a lot of time comparing ourselves to others. Even if we don’t think of ourselves as jealous people, we want to make sure we’re keeping pace with those around us. Especially after spending years in school, being made to do just that. Why not continue those habits once we depart our school years? After all, it’s not as though we know any different after spending maybe 20 years in the schooling system—maybe even more. So I spend time comparing the clothes I wear to the clothes those around me wear. I compare my writing journey to those being published. Have I bought a home yet? Got married? Had a child? Am I on pace?

But then I realized there isn’t a pace.

I can’t control everything in my life. I can’t control when I get published. I can’t control when I meet someone important enough to me to consider marriage. I can’t control when the pandemic releases its hold on the world.

But when I stepped back to take stock of the life I had built around me, I realized I was happy. That this was the life I dreamed about as a child. I worked a good day job that I enjoyed. I spent evenings writing. I had plenty of time to spend with those I cared about. I didn’t have worries about money.

When I stopped comparing myself to everyone around me, I realized that I had created the life I had always wanted and that this was enough.

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I don’t know the future. I wish I knew what “the rest of my life” looked like. I wish I wasn’t filled with anxiety caused by the uncertainty of the world. But the pandemic so far has helped me realize what makes my life good and treasure what I have. Without it, I think I may never have slowed down long enough to realize that I didn’t have to sprint full speed ahead.

Sometimes, I think it’s important to remember the sparks of light. It doesn’t outweigh the darkness or make it worthwhile. But hold on to the sparks. They are the lights that will carry us through.

Once upon a time, a girl became a runner. Unfortunately, she was under a horrible spell.

What a strange way to became a fairy tale. Not with a girl trapped in a tower, waiting to be saved, but a girl trying to save herself. To be clear, this girl was me. And to be clearer, I’ll explain.

I would never say I’m an athletic person. I like being active and participating in sports. I played four years of basketball in middle school and played in a recreation soccer league in college. I’m a member of a kickboxing club now, which I visit multiple times a week. But somewhere in the midst of this, I also spent a number of years as a runner.

It technically started my freshman year of high school, when I was a part of my high school’s track team. I was, quite literally, no exaggeration, the worst member of the team. Every practice was an exercise in torture. I had shin splints that had me constantly limping. I wasn’t in the remotest sense competitive in any of our meets. There was a reason I only did this my freshman year.

But then, my senior year, I auditioned for show choir and by some miracle, I was invited to join! This seems completely unrelated, but I realized that to be a good member of the show choir, I needed to up my endurance. Dancing and singing simultaneously is INTENSE. Seriously: if you enjoy musical theater, gives those people some SERIOUS credit. That is not for the faint of heart! In order to up my endurance, I decided to start running.

This sounds all well and good. Running is a great way to up endurance! People talk about runner’s high and how empowered they feel when they run a 5K. And I’ll be honest: there’s serious truth to that. I’m amazed that in the time I was a runner, I went from running a half mile to running a 10K (6.2 miles for all the non-runners out there). I’m proud of myself for accomplishing that between the end of high school and just after I graduated college. And doing it to improve my health, also great.

However, a neat and tidy story is hardly ever reality. Works nicely in a book but in life, decisions are made from a collection of smaller details. And I didn’t just start running to get healthy.

I started running so as to fit in with my extended family.

A little background here. Some members of my extended family are runners. And they are good at what they do. I’m talking coaches, ultra-marathoners, state-winning, athletic-scholarship-earning runners. Growing up, I spent most family parties listening to the latest goings-on in the running world, which yeah, not the typical gossip.

But it did wear on me. I felt like I was on the outside looking in when it came to my extended family, a feeling only worsened when all of the younger members of my extended family involved were boys. I was the only granddaughter in a world of grandsons. So if I wasn’t on the outside already, not participating in running didn’t help.

So when it came time to grow my endurance, running was the only option I knew. Plus, I saw my opportunity to be seen.

So I ran. I dreaded running about 80% of the time I did it. I loved listening to loud music and enjoying nice weather. The high of race day was amazing! But mostly, my favorite part of running was just having done it. Being done and not having to do it again. The day after I ran, I struggled with stairs. Or, like, moving at all. I was sore. I thought it was a normal part of working out so I dealt with it.

The shin splints I faced during my brief stint on the track team didn’t suddenly disappear, but I ignored them, like my coaches had taught me to. Only, it turns out they were wrong. Because one time I ignored them and it turns out I had literally BROKEN MY LEG. I didn’t know. And so I ran an entire 5K on, yes, a BROKEN LEG.

But I was running, which meant I could participate in family conversations. Which meant it was worth it, right?

No, that wasn’t what happened.

I still couldn’t participate in running gossip because it still involved people I didn't know in a world I wasn't--and didn't want to be--part of. I would try to break in to conversations with my two cents, but my input was often rolled right past because honestly, it wasn't actually relevant. So I wasn’t really part of the conversations.

No, I don’t think any of this was intentional. But it still meant I felt outside. Alone.

A few years after college, I was having trouble running at all. It used to be that sometimes, when I ran, it felt like my heart was accelerating too fast when I started. And then that started to be every time I ran. Until the only thing I could think was: if I start running, I trigger a panic attack.

Now this was before I was diagnosed with anxiety. So for a while, I tried to push through. I tried to convince myself that I was just nervous when I started running and it was a feeling I needed to push through to get past. I’d sometimes felt this in the past when working out like I said. But it became every single time I laced up my running shoes.

Until…finally…I stopped running.

I stopped working out. I was so confused and afraid. For a while, I thought I might have asthma. It was a year before I finally got tested for breathing problems, heart problems, and finally determined my health was fine. I just had clinical anxiety.

And I realized that, for the sake of my mental health, it wasn’t worth it to keep running.

Every time I tried running, I thought about why I started. And it had nothing to do with making good, healthy choices for myself. Nothing to do with wanting to be a good runner. And everything to do with wanting the approval and recognition of others. Which is never a good reason to do anything. But it got to the point that needing that approval and not having it was triggering panic attacks.

It was a nightmare. A horrible nightmare. And it broke my heart. It meant that the need to gain the approval of others led to the deterioration of my mental health, which took me years to realize. Like I said before, I was like the princess waiting in a tower to be saved. Except saved, in this case, meant being noticed. And in this case, I needed to actually save myself.

It’s been almost three years since I was diagnosed with clinical anxiety and I realized I wouldn’t run anymore. Instead, I learned I absolutely love kickboxing. I’m a member of studio that doesn’t say “push through the shin splints” but instead says “if you’re hurting, take a break.” If I miss a day, I’m not reprimanded but told, “it’s good to take time off.” And most of all, I’m doing it for myself and literally not a single other person.

This is a weird story. But I know that there are so many people who choose to do things or take paths to gain the approval of others. Maybe it’s a sibling or a friend or a coworker. And sometimes, these are small gives and takes. I’ll go spend an afternoon on a so-so activity to make someone happy because I love them. I once saw a movie I didn't like TWICE IN THE SAME DAY because I wanted to spend time with people I cared about. But when I started running, I destroyed my mental health and got no joy in return. When I stopped running, no one really noticed. Because they hadn’t really noticed in the first place. Everyone is too wrapped up in their own lives, comparing themselves to others, to notice you compared yourself to them.

Do what you love because you love it.

And if you are trying to be healthy by exercising, there are options that don’t make you want to give up. There are options that really do make you feel alive.