It's a phrase we hear so often and in reference to so many things.
The new normal.
For something to be 'normal' I feel like it needs to at least be constant, static and...well...'feel' normal. In these strangest of times the phrase 'new normal' seems to be applied to anything that changes. Any time there's a shift from something constant to something new, the word normal gets tagged on to the end of it. I'm not looking to get into the cliched debate over what is normal really, but rather think more pragmatically about what we tend to mean when we refer to things as normal.
There are layers to this for each of us. Firstly, there is what's normal to me, as a person, an individual. Then what's normal to our immediate family. It can be fun to discuss with friends what 'norms' we shared within our different families growing up and what differences exist. What time is tea served in the evening (5pm)? Who gets to go first in a board game (the youngest)? Do yorkshire puddings have a place on a christmas dinner (no)?
Then there's the wider family norms. How do we all stay in touch? Whose house do we go to for get togethers? What beliefs are held commonly across the family network (religious or otherwise)
And what of the communities we choose to live in? What's normal in our social networks? online and in person? What's normal for our town, our city, our country?
Right now, what's normal for the world? Covid has us considering things on a more meta, global level, more often than most of us would do in 'normal' times.
I think 'normal' is about comfort. About things we recognise and connect to. Even those of us who seek new experiences and challenges as a part of our make up, still occasionally gravitate to the more often trodden paths, the 'normal' life, just to feel grounded and a little safer.
As things change and we refer to the 'new normal' I know I don't want to accept it. I miss contact with people. Closeness. I don't like the suspicion the virus has infected us all with (understandably so) about the proximity of a stranger. I want to reject the fear, worry, concern that we all carry around at the moment. This might be new, but i don't want to accept it as normal. I don't think it is. Not to me and not to the human condition.
Part of this 'new normal' also seems to be the general heightened anxiety for all of us, again understandably so. What hasn't yet become part of that normality is being able to talk about and process it. There's an admirable collective spirit about getting on with things, adjusting and finding ways to overcome, but at the same time so many of us are holding, like a dirty secret, our worries about when will this be all over, will it ever be over?
We look to leaders to reassure us and give us answers but I suspect they too, are holding in their own anxieties and a level of self awareness about their lack of answers right now.
I feel like we need to be giving each other the licence to say we don't have answers and it's ok to be worried about that. As parents, children of parents, friends, colleagues we are doing what we can to protect and keep safe, but this is going on for longer and crashing through our lives with more damage than any of us expected or we were ever prepared for.
It's ok to say that out loud, it's ok not to have the answers. It's not ok not to talk about it. To hold it all in for fear of speaking about it will just make things worse. We may not be able to cure the virus quite yet but we can fight against some of its impact on our minds and our souls.
We can talk about it.
We can mourn what we've lost at the same time as finding hope that some of it may return.
That hope resides in each of us, between us. And sometimes we need to share that hope with those who are low on it. We just need to know who's low and when they need it.
If that can remain, be increased from the examples I've already seen that have made my heart sing, that is a new normal I can accept and start to call it so
Stay safe and hug those that you can
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