Normal? What's Normal

I feel like there's lots of talk about "getting back to normal" in the aftermath of pandemic life. There's talk of when, of how, of what normal looks like.

For me, "normal" comes with feels. Does anyone remember their last normal day, before? I don't remember my own, but I remember my kid's. March 16, 2020, was their last day of school - I remember running to get my hair cut. I told my hair dresser just to chop it. I didn't have time to color, but I told her that I didn't know when I would be back in. That evening, the kids came home and didn't go back. That was their last normal.

Now that we're starting to get back to any kind of normal, it makes me emotional. It's emotional when they don't remember before. They didn't remember eating inside Chipotle. It's emotional going places that we frequented during quarantine, like state parks. We went to one today and it was strange to be back. I craved those trees and that solitude, but now it brings back those feelings. It's emotional planning for things like vacations, because I'm used to not being able to plan ahead, since so much was uncertain for so long. Transitioning to normal has been gradual and weird.

I'm very thankful that we're even thinking about normal. COVID is still here, but we knew it would be. And I know I won't fully be able to accept that the threat is past us until we get through a winter without seeing that unit go back up. But we're getting there, slowly.

It is so good to be finding normal again. I pray that it can stay. I want normal to feel normal once more.