We’re Never Getting Back to What We Considered Normal. And That’s Okay.

I am getting really tired of people saying, “I can’t wait for things to get back to normal.”

As I write this, we are starting month five of dealing with coronavirus, and it really should be month six. Somehow, this country is an even worse position than when this started. The number of cases are skyrocketing by the day, driven by positive testing rates that are frightening and infuriating. Our hospitals are still stretched to their limits. We still do not have enough tests. The economy is still a disaster. Worst of all, we’re still have a fucking debate about whether or not to wear masks.

Yet despite all of this, many people I know keep pining for normal to return. What makes them think that’s ever going to happen at this point? Because, guess what, it’s not, and we need to be honest about that.

I remember having similar thoughts walking down the streets of D.C. after 9/11, and walking past a tank stationed outside my apartment building for about four months. There were snipers on my roof because we lived on a main road that the President and other leaders took to get through the city.

The tanks and snipers left, but life never fully returned to the way it was on Sept. 10, 2001. We’ve been at war in the Middle East for nearly two decades now…