Finding the new normal

OK, so wow. These last few weeks have definitely been surreal. Everything from the news coming out of all corners of the globe, to the actual lockdown situation where we live, to the realisation that our new "normal" once we can emerge again, will likely not be the previous normal.

And in the end, I think that is okay.

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I am not downplaying the seriousness of the situation we are in. It is deeply unsettling to think about the impact that this pandemic has had on families, businesses, employees, healthcare workers and people who don't have the most resources to begin with. I think here of the homeless, disadvantaged, migrants, refugees, challenged communities in developing countries - and so many others who are more at risk. I am fully aware that I write from a position of relative comfort: I know the healthcare system works in my country, I can work from home, we have clean water and enough food, and my family is safe. We don't have too much to complain about.

So many people around the world cannot say that, and that really worries and saddens me most about this situation we are in. Yes we are all in this together, but my battle is certainly not the same as the battle other people need to fight during this pandemic. We all need to recognise that.

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We hear everyone calling for us to get back to "normal". But what, really, is "normal"? What I think people mean is, I want to be able to make more choices in my daily life about what I do and where I go. I want the fear and the uneasiness to be gone. But I am not sure they will be gone once our governments decide it is safe enough - or, cynically, that the economies have been turned off long enough - to let us all go about our communal lives again.

So many questions about the virus itself: Will there be a second wave? Are people really immune after they've had it? Will there be a vaccine and will there be enough for everyone? Can it be distributed to everyone? Does COVID-19 mutate all the time the way the flu does?

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I personally hope that our new normal after COVID-19 lets us all reflect more and take our time - show ourselves and each other more grace. Lets us value what we have, remind us that we don't always need more. That the hyper pace of life many of us lead is not actually good for us - nor valuable in the long run. At the end of our lives, will anyone really ask how many emails we have sent?

I hope we accept that we have taken advantage of and neglected the environment and animals for too long. I am not talking here about a flighty we're all connected trippy sense of contentedness. I mean that we are all part of one large ecosystem, that gives and takes and reacts and acts and is intricately linked across the globe. That actions in the forests of Laos and conditions in the markets in Wuhan and the air we breath in Europe are all connected. Actions beget reactions. We may not always know them immediately, or recognize them, or understand them, but they are there. And I think we have pushed that down our list of things to care about for too long.

I hope the new normal puts our natural and unseen global contentedness back to the top of our list.

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