The New Normal?

Making our way through the pandemic

Photo by Daniel Joshua on Unsplash

Dear Reader, Thank you for subscribing to Higher and Higher. I intend to post weekly on Sundays, but because of the timing of Passover, I’m adjusting for now. I’ll go back to the regular schedule in April. Happy Passover to those who celebrate! -Penina

The pandemic has gone on so long that I think it’s starting to feel normal. What a terrible thought- that this experience with its fear, sickness, death, inequality, stress, isolation, economic uncertainty and of course the lack of clear and decisive leadership for so long-has become normalized, but in many ways, it has.

I look back at how incredibly stressed and anxious I felt all the time. How we needed to create schedules for the kids and to divide up responsibilities and to set family goals like getting fresh air and having meals together. I scoured Pinterest for art projects to do and signed up for newsletters full of activities for inside and outside the house. I read Holocaust memoirs at the beginning because the darkness and despair actually felt relatable, and I needed to know that survival was possible from a situation infinitely worse than my own. I stayed up late scrolling through Facebook and streaming all sorts of tv shows, so many shows that I had a hard time even remembering some of my favorites when I tried to talk about it with a friend. We settled into an awful routine with work, kids, cooking and cleaning and all the while I was feeling as though I was failing my kids because our only escape was when they got on their screens. Somehow all the work still needed to get done and so we walked around glued to our phones, never letting up so we wouldn’t drop any number of balls we had in the air.

Only when Trump finally boarded that helicopter did I begin to actually breathe again. Finally, we could go back to having common problems and not have to wake up wondering what destructive thing he did or said to set back progress in our country and in the world. Celebrating with the country the incredible inauguration finally allowed my heart and stomach to unclench. That day made me proud and took my breath away; all of those powerful women: Michelle, Hillary, Amy, the politicians, the officers, the musicians and the poet and of course, Kamala. It was the dawning of a new day.

But the pandemic rages on and on. Kids still languish at home on their computers, Chromebooks or tablets. Some still struggle to get internet access to join their peers. Parents still juggle work and childcare, and many frontline workers, many in lower wage jobs, are still ineligible for the vaccine. Racial injustice and gun violence still plague our country, and we have not yet been able to reunite the separated children with their parents.

And yet…While I know it’s nothing close to a normal reality, we have figured out how to get through each day and sometimes acknowledge the silver linings or moments of grace. There was one day a week ago when I saw friends posting pictures of their kids returning to school for the first time in over a year, adult children reuniting with their parents and grandparents hugging their grandchildren, some meeting one another for the first time. It is nothing short of miraculous.

Psalm 30 describes the experience of overcoming great struggle and the overwhelming gratitude to the Divine for lifting us out of despair. “One may lie down weeping at nightfall but at dawn, there are shouts of joy.” Though the times are still dark, joy is coming in the morning. These lines have brought comfort to us for centuries, and Raphael Warnock used them in his acceptance speech when he became the first black senator from Georgia. The psalm ends by saying, “You turned my lament into dancing, you undid my sackcloth and girded me with joy”.  There is an end in sight and change is possible.

 It is simply not healthy to live with such incredibly high stress and fatigue for so long. I recognize the profound privilege we have that with masking, Covid testing and distancing, two of our kids have been able to attend school in person multiple times a week.  But because of this pandemic, our children have been greatly tested in new ways, and we, as the adults in their lives, do the best we can to help them discover routines and moments of joy, while finding ways to cope ourselves.

This isn’t the article I thought I was going to write but clearly this was something that needed to emerge. If I hadn’t decided that I needed to start focusing on my own health and resilience, I would still be numbing myself with junk food and streaming content. I made some big decisions because I was started to lose sight of who I wanted to be, and I decided not to wait any longer to make my life better.

The pandemic is becoming normalized; it is now a part of who are and who we will be for the foreseeable future. As a result, we are no longer expected to function in crisis mode by the world around us. In fact, we cannot exist as if our lives are simply a series of fires we need to put out. While we have to keep the lights on and food on the table, even more than that, we need to find enjoyment, (and of course gratitude) even in our darkest hours.

At least there is an actual light at the end of the tunnel as more and more people are getting the vaccine. I will hold onto the hope that President Biden offered us: that by July 4th, we will actually be able to celebrate together.

I will share in coming weeks about what steps I am taking to make my own physical, spiritual and mental health a priority again, and I’ll offer suggestions that you can use as well. Thank you for being part of my journey!