How Are You? Changing What Is “Normal”

How are you? Right now, in this moment.

We ask each other all the time: How are you doing?

And we mean it, right? I genuinely want to know how my friends and family are. We all have different private battles, priorities, successes and stresses. I also know that when I am asked I lately give one of three answers:

  • Oh, you know!

  • Fine.

  • Well, the kids are doing ok with the remote school. I’m trying to figure out how to incorporate my love of plants and pottery into a side hustle. I’ve been listening to a great new podcast and I’ve also been worried about my parents since they are looking for a new home -they’ve lived in their current one for 30+ years, and what is the next stage of my career going to look like? My friend is moving and it sucks. Also, I don’t know how California is going to survive this heat wave and wildfires right now, on top of coronavirus. I mean, the levels of anxiety and depression are probably through the roof with everyone trying to juggle everything, plus their jobs, with this layer of absurdity on top of ….

The other day a friend of mine texted me and asked how I was. I told her the kids were finally getting into the swing of school. She responded with, “I mean, how are YOU?” Oh.

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I think for all of us our response depends on the person asking and literally the moment we are in. What if we moved the line of what 'normal' or ‘regular’ is and stopped thinking about what life was like 6 months ago? I think we'd be pretty good actually. Healthy. Food. Enough $. Home. We have all the basics. Our baseline of what good is, is just very different from what it was in January. In January we were planning a trip to New Zealand or Hawaii. In January we were excited about trips to the beach in the summer. In January we were still visiting my parents each month. In January we were looking forward to a Pearl Jam concert. There were playdates and restaurants and concerts. So I have reframed what our ‘regular’ looks like. Now there are socially distanced meets in the park, take-out, and living room dance parties. All good, just different.

To me it feels like a waste of time to be wistful about the time pre-Covid. Yep, lots of great memories. But if I keep thinking about what we don’t have, I will miss out on what we do have. We have a LOT of family time. I’ve had the chance to help the kids get going for their first few weeks of school. Hubs and I have lunch together, during the week! We are home at decent times instead of working late. No commute!

Do I miss all the other things? Absolutely. Am I looking forward to a time that looks more like that? Of course. But I’m trying really hard to find those little moments of joy in front of me right now. So I’m going to work on revising my answer.