The New Normal?

In the uncertain early days of the lockdown in March 2020, I remember going on a quiet, lingering stroll with my daughter in the middle of a workday when she’d normally be at school. Because it was the best way of communicating with the larger world at the time, some people had placed signs of support and optimism on their lawns and in their windows. A few had even restrung their Christmas lights just a few months after taking them down and stashing them back in the attic because … why not? Ahhhhh, we needed this, I thought. We all needed a break to slow down. We’re going to be better for this. We’ll reprioritorize.

And, in all fairness, in some important ways that turned out to be true. I personally made some big changes in my job and life as a result of the pandemic. The biggest of those changes is that my then 2-year-old ended up staying home with me for just under eighteen months, rather than going back to daycare in a few weeks as I had initially intended back in March 2020. In so many ways, that is a gift that I will always be grateful for—the gift of irretrievable time.

Of course, I had to alter my work in serious ways because of it. Some of those changes were for the better, too. And some of them were really, really hard. Balancing being a sole-household income earner who does deep-focus work with raising a toddler 24/7 is no joke. For many, many months after the world opened up again and Izzy went back to school, I felt like I’d broken my brain, like it had undergone some sort of physical trauma in the course of those months of trying to simultaneously do very conflicting things. I think back to the books I wrote and podcasts I recorded in 2020 and 2021 and wonder how. I’m not really sure, to tell you the truth.

Then there was the period of time between 2021 and 2022 when the pattern of daily life returned, but it felt like the world at large forgot that, for those of us with kids under five who weren’t vaccinated, the pandemic was still very much ongoing. We were just trying to navigate life with some sort of semblance of normalcy amidst it. That was hard and scary. On the one hand, I was so happy to see my very social daughter back amongst friends. On the other, it pulled at my heartstrings to see all of these little kids wearing masks (though that was a me problem, not a them problem—these kids are so freakin’ adaptable). But, most of all, there was the fear of COVID spreading. I know my daughter is healthy, and I know that kids were statistically less likely to have a bad case of COVID, but there’s still no way of knowing which cases will be an exception.

So, when I got COVID in January 2021, I was in a stone-cold panic. My daughter, of course, had to stay home from school lest she spread it, which meant spending several anxiety-ridden days in close proximity 24/7, knowing that I was contagious. I double-masked at all times, which was miserable. In the end, my daughter got it too, but the only way I even knew was because I had to test her for her return to school after I recovered. She was completely asymptomatic. In this strange world, her getting COVID felt like a gift, like I could take a breath knowing how her little body processed it.

When the five and under vaccine finally came out and she got it, we went out to celebrate over burgers and fries. You know the world is wonky when a 5-year-old is willingly getting and celebrating a shot!

And in the midst of all of this, life not only continued, but intensified: political insanity, civil unrest, shortages, and economic uncertainty. Not to mention whatever trials and dramas have happened or are happening in our own lives. For me personally, my dad died in the midst of all of this. And my family is certainly not alone in that: I know lots of people who have lost loved ones. It’s never a good time to lose someone, but it’s even more complex in a world where your people can’t gather around to offer support like they might normally, either because of logistics or because they’re in the middle of it, too. It can be profoundly isolating in an already particularly isolating moment in history.

I’m writing about all of this now, but the truth of the matter is that at this point, three years in, I don’t think about much of this consciously anymore. It’s just life—and it’s exhausting. It wasn’t until this article from The Cut landed in my inbox that I took a moment to reflect on the “normal” in which we’re now living.

In “There is No Break Coming for Parents,” Amid Niazi writes: I’ve thought a lot about that moment in the past three or so years, about making it farther than you ever thought possible on what you assumed were fumes and a prayer. I can tell you now, anecdotally, how hard that drive was, but that word doesn’t really do justice to the paralyzing fear and anxiety that took over my entire body — how it felt not to know if I’d make it through — and only once I was safely on the other side did I realize how scared I’d been.

When I imagined this new world we all might live in back in those early days of March 2020, this certainly wasn’t what I imagined. But here we are. My great hope as a parent, as a human being, is that this is a time of exposure, a time to cast light on all of the habits and systems and people that aren’t working so that we can ultimately create something better, something kinder and slower and far more humane.

But, until then, I agree with Niazi that we all need to rest. None of this is easy, and whether it’s a new normal or not, it certainly isn’t fleeting.