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what does normal even mean. (Patreon)

Published:
2021-06-30 10:47:12
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

hallo loves.


this is a really moving little film; three intercut interviews about returning to “normal”.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/30/opinion/covid-reopening-anxiety.html?referringSource=articleShare

it’s short. i just watched it and felt compelled to share it, and write.

and ask.

it makes me wonder about everyone’s feelings about this. how is it…feeling?

what does - and doesn’t - “normal” even mean anymore?

what is it feeling right now, in your heart, to begin edging back into the way things were? tell. i’m listening. (we are all listening).

as for me? i don’t know. i’m lost. i’ve been in a country with no covid for well over a year. the idea of going home is intoxicating, thrilling and also … very frightening. i’m afraid i would not understand things. i’m afraid the culture shock would be disorienting. i’m afraid that what is normal to others will not feel normal for me. i’m terrified of feeling alone.

i’m not even sure i can describe any of this.

and i’m a writer.

but i am at a loss for words to describe how any of this feels.

it’s why i come to you to help me.

so tell me. how does it feel? maybe it will help the loneliness.

i have an althing to get out tomorrow. i’m bottlenecking my patreon posts.

and i don’t care.

x

a

p.s. *edit, 20 min after posting* i cross-posted a shorter version of this post to FB and the comments are gold, too. this was shared by asha sanaker. this is in ithica, NY. fuck i wish patreon would allow for images in the comments.

Files

Previews only

Comments

Melanie Goguen

Not normal... My Kiwi partner is living with me here in Canada and hasn't been able to visit his mum this year because of the necessity of 2 weeks isolation at each end. Another Kiwi friend who recently got posted to an embassy in North America was surprised at how exhausted the staff all were when he arrived. Kiwis have been enjoying a relatively normal existence at home, but navigating the nuances of travel and re-opening to the rest of the world is going to be a tough road. I don't want to go back to my old normal of over-committing to social engagements, now that I have finally been putting more time into my art. Things are opening up again in my area (slowly) and I am realizing I am much more anxiety prone than I was pre-pandemic when I was working in emergency management.

Steven Panzek

Is there any fellow patron who is a health care worker? If so then perhaps u can feel me. Some of us never left the “bad normal” work and the grind. We had to work while we heard story after story of “I’ve run out of things to watch” or “I’m tired of zoom calls” while wearing pj’s. Some of us busted are ass. BUT didn’t have the “good normal”-fun to fall back on. I think some of us need to realize to “get a grip”. You can’t hide forever. LIVE

Marguerita Tajibnapis

In Minnesota we have a high vaccination rate especially in the city of Minneapolis where I live. I have socialized in person and even hugged people that i only knew over the internet for a year. (we all go to a “nightclub” on Twitch twice a week with a favorite DJ so our bond is music and dancing). Nevertheless I don’t want to go to the State Fair with its massive crowds. I know many who attend will come from the out state areas where people have refused vaccines. I don’t want to mingle with them. The vaccination doesn’t mean you will never ever get Covid. You can still get it, it just won’t be as serious and you probably won’t have to be hospitalized or fear death. Nevertheless, I still don’t want to get sick. I knew my nightclub friends were all vaccinated because we all talked about when we got them, where, what kind over the Twitch chat. Everyone was so excited to get vaccinated. So I will really pick and choose what I do and where I go. This year I experienced an uptick in creativity where I produced more artwork in a few months than I have in years. I went to more yoga classes (every day instead of a few times a week) because it was so easy and convenient. That helped my mental health a lot during a year when for most of it, it seemed like T***** was trying to kill us and racism was killing people in my city. I view Chauvin’s conviction and sentencing to be just a start. I want a new normal. I don’t want to return to the old way of doing things. I’m deeply concerned that this country could slip into full fascism mode all too easily.

Julia Mason
>>62881790

Yes! For me, I never stopped driving to work. I wear masks all day every day. I never got caught up with Netflix.

VitAnyaNaked

I perfectly understand you that you have no words to describe your feelings now, as you see, even writers sometimes face such a problem! I was very amazed by this film and am very glad that you shared it.

Valentin P

I feel privileged being young, male and white in germany, where things are pretty good all in all. As a freelance writer my personal "normal" didn't really change much. Still these words really resonate with me and most people I know. "Normal was not working out for all of us." I, too, do not want to go back.

Damian Masterson

My family and I are on the last day of long-planned trip to NYC - our first real excursion in 18 months, and one that only fit into this narrow life window, or could not happen at all. Our oldest is old enough to appreciate some of the things he’s heard about (or in the case of the Empire State Building, built with Legos), so we came at a time where we feel pretty safe, and before things got crowded again. Everyday we walked over to Central Park. We did the Empire State Building and he got to see the city. We did the Met and the Museum of Natural History. We’re going to swing by Coney Island on our drive home today. We expected to be pretty freaked and white knuckled this whole week, but it’s been weirdly fine. We wore our masks and sanitized our hands, and everywhere we went, most of the people we saw were still being sensible. I don’t know how much we would enjoy the things we did once NYC actually gets back to normal levels of crowding, but this has unexpectedly worked out to be the best trip our family has ever taken. I do wonder a bit about what the return to normalcy might look like long term, because when I think about any future version of this trip, or one like it, I picture my family masked and sanitizing our hands. COVID and the Delta variant aside, it’s would just generally be nice not to get sick if it can be helped.

Anonymous

The odd thing is I didn't forget big normal but I forgot small normal. I have a lvl 9000 cabin fever and have to make an enormous effort to pick my son up from the kindergarten. I remember enjoying hiking and running in the woods but don't remember why or the feeling itself. Whay would anyone want to go and spwnd time in nature? Or with other people? I remember the act, not the feeling and I'm scared to repeat the acts. What if I fail at being human?

Svetlana

Honestly, I agree with everything on the structural level, that we shouldn't go back to our greedy ways etc (although really how much can we really influence that as individuals?), but i'm also dreading going back to nornal on a personal level. Where I live, everything seems almost normal again, except for wearing masks in public transport and in stores. But people are allowed to meet and events are taking place. And it's giving me so much anxiety. And on a very egoistic level I'm feeling sad that my friends now have better things to do and don't have so much time for me anymore. And especially the fact that they are not forced to spend time alone with me anymore. I'm not that good in groups, so yeah.. that means I'll be spending even more time by myself. And I didn't miss the fomo, either. I knew this would happen, and now it's happening. Everyone is moving on and I'm still stuck. All my personal failures are my own agan. I currently don't have a job, and now it's (again) because I'm a failure, not because it's hard due to corona. I don't have a partner and now I feel like that's because I suck at dating, not because it's hard to meet people during the pandemic. I don't have many friends, and now the reason is that I'm shitty with people and don't have an interesting personality, not because it was hard to meet people during corona. Etc... The virus is almost gone and I feel like I should be happy, but I'm just sad (sums up my life lol).

Laura Wellner

Amanda, you're going to come home to a fuck ton of shit that happened that cannot be explained easily. We're all in the same shit but on different boats, for sure. Normal...well, the new version of "normal" I guess. From my size 6 1/2's I'm able to go mostly maskless, tho' I do mask up in crowded spaces even tho' I am vaccinated, since my sister is in the midst of chemo treatments for ovarian cancer, I can't risk carrying anything to her (or anyone with a vulnerable immune system.) It's been good to be able to hug people again, to see faces. To shake hands. Things that were once natural before COVID often come with a brief hiccup of "wait" read the body language to make sure it's ok to reach out and touch someone. (I'm not normally a touchy feel-y person, I have personal space issues that seem to have gotten worse as I have gotten older, and with COVID, holy shit, my skin prickles with warnings when someone is too close for comfort.) Anyway...I love home more than ever, going places is not a priority. I hear that some people are having trouble transitioning back to the workplace, and if they're denied flextime to work from home, they prefer to quit their job than to return to the office (that's risky.) I get it. I was pretty happy working at home, but thankfully, I happen to love my job at the museum and I need that tactile and visual experience with the artwork and the storage facilities to do my job. I have been very overwhelmed by the work, a year of backlog is glaring at me, and the incoming emails dictating what I need to do next are nagging at me to set aside things that are piling up around me. I have mentioned more than once since June 1st "I want to retire." (I'm not old enough yet, but getting closer.) I do and I don't. Sometimes just saying it is a release valve to let off the build up...but I do fear the stress is getting to be too much, the pace is too intense, and I'm not getting any younger. It's becoming very clear to me that my job is for a younger person. (I had to get up on a ladder to inspect a stained glass window that was falling apart, thankfully, I did not have vertigo that day!) I need two of me (at least) to do what needs to be done. (Which means, not just another body with hands to do the heavy lifting, but a brain with all of my knowledge and experience, if I have to keep telling this other body with hands what to do, where to go find stuff, and this n' such, I might as well do it myself.) The new boss hasn't returned to work, barely makes an effort to come in, and other issues that I can't get into because I shouldn't open that can of worms here. It's not inspiring. I know my job, fuck it, I'll get it done. I guess this is the new version of normal. On the outer edges, the stuff going on socially, politically, and globally, it's grim. I can't do much about that dumpster fire out there. If people don't start meeting in the middle and relearning how to compromise, the "my way or the highway axe to grind" trend is polarizing every fucking bit of minutiae of daily life. Honestly, we're in big trouble. "There is promise in compromise..." I put that phrase on one of my recent pages in a portfolio of artwork that I created over this past year. Seriously, it's imperative that we come together as a country to get shit done, do the business of the country. The big picture. Over 600,000 people died from COVID. Millions had the virus, and some of those people are permanently impaired by what it did to them. There's millions of people who managed to come through on the other side of this, seemingly unscathed because they took precautions, but were not untouched. There's this low hum of unease, fatigue, and frustration. We should be happy, but we're not. We need to keep going forward, "going back to normal," that normal from before COVID isn't going to happen. There will be a surface appearance, but deep down the damage is done. The insecurity is going to be tough to overcome. At the moment, I focus on my acre of the world, creating order in disorder, cleaning house, being kind, taking care of people, critters, flowers, veggies...trying to keep things simple. The happiest moment of the week, the milkweed flowers bloomed and the honey bees came, it was beautiful. Life goes on. I will leave you with that. Happy thoughts! Love & hugs.

Nathan Gray

If you haven't read Sonya Renee Taylor's book yet you definitely should. She's also living in Aotearoa/NZ now. As for normal...small picture, the vaccine is helping and MA feels generally safe these days so it's been nice to see and hug vaccinated friends again. Small picture meeting big picture, my dad refuses to get vaccinated, so he won't get to hold his grandchild, and he is of the opinion that Critical Race Theory and universal preschool are the two biggest threats to the country. I don't even know how to interact with him anymore when he seems so disconnected from reality. Big picture, I'm hoping we can actually take this opportunity to build a society that actually cares for everyone.

Anneloes Fickweiler

This was helpful to see, and I’m glad to have read the comments above also. It makes me feel less alone. Thank you, all!

Skyeanna Malito

I will be entirely honest. I don't want it to end. I mean, I want people to stop dying of Covid, but the rest of it has been a wonderful time for me and I don't want to go back to the way things were. But I am looking forward to hugs and snuggles and cuddles and kisses from friends again.

Anonymous
>>63202719

My thoughts exactly! My country hasn't been that strict about lockdown and masks (sadly), so it hasn't been really quiet this entire time, yet still I feel the world around me getting louder, and I feel tired and overwhelmed.