“New Normal” is a phrase that has been repeated  in the media and I’m here to tell you…. There is nothing normal about  COVID 19!  Unemployment is in the millions, schools and businesses are closed, lines for food pantries are miles long, masks are required for a trip to the grocery store and we’ve had to re-teach hand washing…our lives have been completely flipped upside down.

Prior to quarantine,  life was filled with our normal routines.  Students were learning and laughing with their friends in a school building. We were going to work with dreams of “is it the weekend yet.” Our calendars were filled with the day to day appointments and pending plans for Easter, spring and summer breaks. Deposits were already submitted for weddings, graduations, vacations or family reunions. Then the days slowly shifted to the country being on a “stay at home” order. Sports are cancelled, churches and business are closed; students having to finish the academic year online.  Graduations, weddings and all future plans up in the air indefinitely. We are at war with COVID-19 and our only weapons of defense  “social distancing” and washing our hands!

With the uncertainties of COVID-19, our current reality looks like this:

The task of going to the grocery store now requires strategic planning of maintaining  6ft apart, mandatory face masks, Clorox wipes and a mindset that you’re entering a biohazardous zone only to find that the essentials are limited or already sold out.

The concept of working from home dressed in  yoga pants, sweats or in some cases no pants at all was once the ideal work space. The “ideal” now has turned into Zoom meetings with a continuous circus running in the back ground…  dogs barking , cats scaling what ever they can, that one co-worker that has no clue of what’s going on and let’s not forget that one family member who “forgot” that you are in a meeting and walks by doing or saying something questionable i.e someone walking around in underwear.

Parents are now teachers and slapped with the harsh reality that teaching is hard. So parents what ever stress you’re feeling about teaching, multiply that by thirty.  Oh and you’ve realized that those emails about your child’s behavior wasn’t exaggerated. P.S. teachers are not the problem. School systems face the obstacles of finishing the school year online which and left unanswered questions about earned credits, graduations, and the online platform itself.

COVID 19 has really pulled back the societal blind fold and truly exposed the injustices that we’ve known all along, society can’t run without our true heroes…our doctors, nurses, grocery and restaurant workers, truck and delivery drivers and of course our sanitation engineers who are risking their health to provide for others.

This virus has pushed governments into uncharted territory by having to make minute to minute changes to life as new data is being reported. They’re having to write executive orders in the name of safety. People around the world are now left with so many unanswered questions that seemed like they could only come from a sci-fi movie script.

As ugly as this virus is, it has brought out the beauty in a lot of people. Doctors and nurses are coming out of retirement to help; neighbors taking care of each other, drive by birthday celebrations.  Restaurant owners and chefs are making sure that the hospital staff  and other individuals who now find themselves in need are fed.

Celebrities are doing live book readings and concerts to provide a temporary escape of this madness known as COVID-19. People are turning back to  God, families are spending to together and “yes” we are still watching Netflix.

I accept the temporary adjustments that are needed to survive, but I will not accept this “new normal”