Why I’ve given up hunting for the ‘new normal’
Anton says confusion reigns, so it is better to step back and celebrate making it through each day
SO, what is “normal”? Even more problematic, what is the “new normal”? Since Covid-19 was visited upon us, life really has given a new dimension to the shifting sands of time. Just when you think you’ve cracked it, the rules change, the advice becomes blurred. Even within the UK. Especially within the UK.
England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland each do things differently. If I’ve been to Rhyl for the weekend, do I have to quarantine for a fortnight?
I am confused – even more confused than those Rams fans trying to work out from the club’s website whether Derby County’s ticket office is open for would-be spectators to walk in and buy a ticket over the counter. At the time of writing, it seems that you can do this only online, which has thwarted many less-than-computer-savvy pensioners in particular.
I would have no chance. I daren’t even use the self-service checkout at Tesco. Looking helpless until someone arrives is all that works for me. That said, it does worry me when an assistant approaches when I’m still shopping and asks: “Are you all right, sweetheart?” I must work on my appearance.
But what is it with trying to get back to “normal”? I reckon that my friend Viv Wigley has the answer: there isn’t anything that is “normal”.
Viv told me: “I found myself today doing a bit of post-mortem housekeeping. A sad task, as I deleted the phone number, email address and social media profiles of a long-standing pal lost to Covid. I pray he is in a better place but I’m fairly sure that he won’t be contacting me by these means.
“I hadn’t seen him in his final months. He said he didn’t want to venture out until things were normal. Despite persuasion, even ‘new normal’ wouldn’t bring him out. I stood in his front garden and may have as well been shucking an oyster. He held fast, and I never saw him again.
“I dwelt on this for some time, and I’ve decided not to use any phrase with ‘normal’ in it. Because there is no such thing – and never has been.
“I have a pal living with MS, a recently-bereaved lady friend, and several others who could wish for better. We all have a different ‘normal.’
“‘Normal’ is defined as ‘to a standard, typical or expected.’ But nobody’s life I know is standard, typical, or expected. Every new sunrise leaves us open as a target to fate. So, I’ve abandoned ‘normal.’ It is quite liberating.
“I now see each new day as a new challenge, a new game, a battle. If the enemy is gaining ground, I adapt, regroup, and push back, and at bedtime, if I’ve made it through, and by God’s grace I wake next day, then I’ve won.
“Every day is a victory to celebrate. I actually do wake and go ‘Woohoo!’ Honestly. Makes me start with a smile. Far more satisfying than boring, grey, everyday, habitual – that ‘normal.’”
So that’s it then: stop striving for “normal”. For most of us, the perfect life is out of reach anyway. There are periods when everything is as we wish it to be. But there are always going to be twists and turns in the road, hills to climb and we can’t be sure what is on the other side. These past 16 months have been a wake-up call. Before Covid we regarded “normal” to mean not how things actually are, but how we want them to be in a perfect world. And there isn’t one. Once you have accepted that, as Viv says, it is quite liberating. Just live the life you’ve been given; play with the cards you’ve been dealt. So, pour yourself a drink, put on your favourite song, and I’ll leave you this week with the words of the philosopher Alain de Botton: “The only people we can think of as normal are those we don’t yet know very well.”
These past 16 months have been a wake-up call... we want them to be in a perfect world. And there isn’t one.