What is this “New Normal” we’ve heard so much about during the pandemic? We hear it all the time, but do any of us really know what it is? It’s a term to describe that new way of life that emerges after a crisis, the new habits and routines, the new way of living.
We plan for our futures in many ways. Yet each of us inevitably faces a major shift in life that shakes us out of the familiar and makes us rethink the future we thought was certain. Whether we’ve lost our partner to death or divorce, lost a job or career, experienced a major illness, or any major change, we know that life is forever changed.
We can never be sure what life will be like when the dust begins to settle. As it does, we find ourselves getting into new routines and new habits. What used to be so normal it didn’t take any thought is being replaced. Creating this new normal is sometimes difficult and might even seem impossible. The phrase “you never get over it” is a reminder that you will never again be the “old” you – the person you were before the flood, the tornado, the death of your beloved. You’ve lost something tremendously dear to you and your suffering exists because of that love. Death wounds us, scars us, and inevitably changes us.
It is said that time heals all wounds. That might be so, each of us in our own way will fill the hole left behind. But whatever takes up that space isn’t what we’ve lost. No matter how hard we try, things will never be the same. But in time, you’ll become a new you – and you’ll find a new normal.
