Normal is Dead

The way things used to be — what we call “normal” — is not coming back. It’s dead. Completely dead.

Just take that in for a minute…

For me, that was hard to do. Until a teacher’s email reflections had me feel into it deeply, I wasn’t even aware that I felt that way. If I’m honest, I really want to go back to normal; I want my old life back. But part of me knows, it’s not coming back. My life will never be the same. I don’t think yours will, either.

My teacher’s theme in his reflections was coming to grips with what he taught: “I don’t know”. We actually can’t know how it will all come back together, in whatever new way that it does. We can trust that it will come back, and that we will make the best of it: that’s in our nature. But we can’t predict — or control — how it will come back together.

Now is not the time for trying to predict the future; it is a time for coming to grips with the “normal” that we lost. As disappointing as “normal” may have been at times, it was our normal. We really liked it, mostly. Personally, I’ve been sad, and angry, with the loss of leading workshops in person, of flying all around the world, of physically going to conferences. Some of those things may come back in one way or another, but they certainly won’t be the same. And right now, I’m really missing that.

If we can really allow in all our feelings of grief for the old normal, it likely will put us in a better place for when it is time to welcome in — and create — our new world.

For now, let’s just grieve.

—Michael Spayd