Friday, April 9, 2021

A Reminder That It's Not Quite Normal

 

Rock climbing and hiking. Another weekend away from others.


Yesterday I wrote about how normal IS happening now. From our full calendar to (safe and socially distanced) events we've attended, our world is looking more normal. Of course, it's not quite normal. We were slapped, hard, in the face with that reality the Friday before Easter. Like many others, we had made plans with family for Easter. It was a MUCH different Easter than 2020 and we were thrilled to be getting back into it.

We were so thrilled that we had plans for Easter weekend, plans with more family the weekend after, and plans with more family the weekend after that to finally celebrate a birthday in person. April would be the first time in a year that we would begin seeing people, other than the five faces that live in our house, on the weekends. It was a great reminder of our normal. I felt we weren't being stupid about it either. All get togethers were going to be held outside, masked, and with fewer than a dozen people each weekend. 

Then we got the call. People we were to see in the next few weeks HAD Covid. Family members were being tested and their results held us in limbo. Our plans wound up in shambles. There were tears from the minis. They had finally gotten to play with two of their cousins the weekend prior for an hour and were so looking forward to being in the prescense of other family members. 

Now, we were able to salvage our weekend and the coming weekends thanks to grabbing our State Parks Tour sheets and letting the minis pick where we would road trip. Was it disappointing for us adults as well? Definitely, but in the swoop of picking our minis up, we didn't have time to process what had just happened until long after the minis were in bed, the car was packed with the next day's essentials, and we could finally rest.

More than disappointment, it really got me thinking. Making plans and getting back into a new normal is wonderful for so many reasons, but it shouldn't give us a false sense of security that the world is going back to completely normal. Despite being vaccinated (everyone we were planning on seeing in the coming weeks were also fully vaxed or had at least one dose, for those that are curious), we should continue to remain cautious. We're still in a pandemic and sometimes it's easy to forget that as we see the world around us attempting to appear normal. But it's not. Normal is happening, but this was an excellent reminder that our normal still needs to be different.