So much has changed since Coronavirus has entered our lives. I want to highlight these changes and pause with the question, how will our lives be different once we are allowed to go back to normal?
Normal, I dare say will never be normal, not bad, but definitely different. What are the circumstances that will make our new normal different?
The People Factor
Fear
- Hoarding of groceries and essentials, empty shelves, and the defined times to shop by age group.
- Lines outside of pawn shops for purchase of a gun and shelves cleared of ammunition.
- The knee jerk reaction when someone coughs or sneezes near you.
- Masks, bandanas and scarves that cover our faces, and gloves that cover our hands.
- Staying at home, developing new routines to overcome cabin fever, while living with fear, the job you had will be eliminated.
- Paranoia when you leave your hand sanitizer at home, especially after putting the gas nozzle back in the pump.
- Inability to be self sufficient, to go to work and earn an income, all taken away in a matter of days, with a dependency on our government for relief you hope will come.
- Worry about how you will rebuild your life IF your business is rebuildable and if not, what will you do?
Sadness
- Social interaction or lack therof.
- Ability to run errands in your car and not feel guilty.
- Going to a park and calculating your distance as you approach people versus enjoying the walk, saying hello and seeing someone smile.
- Elbow punches or namastes instead of a hand hold, or a hug.
- Depression with cabin fever, and your new role as Mom, Dad, home schooler, art teacher, juggler and breadwinner, now Zoom professional.
- When you see your neighbors, you ask them from afar, how they are doing?
Social
- Gathering with friends for happy hours, book clubs and bridge games now a Zoom meeting or phone call if they happen at all.
- The afternoon lunch on the patio on a warm Spring day while staring at the cherry blossoms, are something you wish you never took for granted.
- The Baseball home opener is a You Tube party watching past games as you dust snow and dust off the grill, so you can cook some ballpark franks, and if you are lucky, you were able to find some ketchup and relish for your ‘stay inside’ home opener.
- You’ve dusted off the cruiser bike and lubed the chain with WD-40, because it’s all you had, so you can go out for a ride, to feel the sun on your face and wind in your hair. The highlight is waving to people who are sitting on their porches or playing games on their front lawn….ahhhh…social interaction.
The Moments That Brought Comfort…for me
- The walk in the park when the couple passed me and our pups and they told me they were smiling behind their masks. It was then I realized how much I missed seeing the smiles.
- Riding my cruiser bike and passing the house where the family used chalk, and party decorations to create their own Tiki bar and Hawaiian theme.
- Seeing people playing dodge ball in the streets and seeing a hop scotch drawn with chalk. When was the last time you saw that or threw a rock hoping it would land in the square?
- The groups of people that dusted off their sewing machines and made surgical masks for our health care workers, leaving bins on their front lawns for donations.
Defeat has no measure in the eyes of those who choose strength and passion to persevere.
The Company Factor
- The impact on small businesses, watching your hard work and dreams taken away with one mandate, leaving you to consider how to recover or rediscover new options for the livelihood of your business.
- Restaurants with chairs stacked and the smell of Lysol versus the tasty smells of their perfected cuisine. Their new reality of the dependency on Grub Hub or Door Dash or the faithful patron who dared to come in after reading the mandated rules and being sure to stand on the masking tape X on the floor.
- Finding gratitude for the truck drivers, grocery store workers, agriculture workers, mail carriers, delivery drivers who faithfully set your Amazon packages on your porch. No doubt we all at one time, took these individuals for granted.
- Companies that rallied to redefine production lines to make protective breathing equipment, masks or respirators to support those in need.
Seeing through the fog of loss and security to look beyond I and instead choose WE.
The Health Care Factor
- Our health care system already struggling with repeal Accountable Care Act (ACA), Medicare for All and politicians creating new proposals in hopes of fixing our fractured health care system.
- As another worker in the health care industry, I went to work with the wait and see who will be elected and whose fix for health care would win and how we would adjust. Hurry up and work, keep the status flow and adjust to the change…if it comes at all.
And then we were tested…
- Life turned quickly for those who struggled to survive the Coroanavirus and sadly those who died, the baby boomers, the Gen X and Gen Y. We mourned the loss via Facebook, the likes of actors, comedians, and singers, with shares and sad emojis.
- On occasion, during our Facebook social scroll we stopped on the pictures of our health care workers with bruised faces from their protective breathing equipment and long hours trying to care for patients with a disease of which there was no cure.
- To be that health care worker sworn to save lives only to see the loss of those they could not save.
- To be powerless against a disease coupled with their own fear and yet courage to put themselves and their families at risk to save those they could.
- To mourn silent tears and pain for those they pronounced…
The power of unconditional love and support against all odds, to save lives and support the country we love.
So I ask the question again…I hear people say everyday….”I can’t wait to get back to normal.” I don’t disagree with getting back to normal, but I have to say it will be a new normal. I don’t think that we can look back at what we have been through and dare to look at normal as we once did.
I hope we don’t.
I hope our new normal means we don’t let go of being more mindful about washing our hands, or wiping the door handles or keeping sanitizer for those times you can’t wash your hands, let’s continue to be proactive.
I hope we never take for granted the baseball home opener, the crowds, the smiles, the smells of cotton candy and hot dogs or the crunch of peanut shells beneath your feet as you cheer on the home team.
I hope we pause to be gentle with those who have different opinions and seek to understand versus judge.
I hope we never take our neighbors, family and friends for granted.
I hope we work harder at our jobs with humility, accountability and gratitude, to be the best we can be everyday to make great change happen in our own small way. YES everyone matters.
Let’s live with vigor, hope, humility and appreciation for one another and work toward not letting a pandemic take away those we love or destroy the country that gives us life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…ever again.