The New Normal

It seems as though many people I know are learning to deal with what I call the new normal. The new normal is settling into new ways of doing things because something upset {and possibly destroyed} the old way. Over a period of six years, I've encountered a lot of new normals:

new ways to communicate
new relationships
new dreams
new traditions on holidays

The hardest thing about the new normal is realizing the old ways of normal are over. Trying to go back to them as they were is usually detrimental. At first, it's difficult to comprehend that the new normal can be just as good {although different} as the old normal. Sometimes, it turns out to be better.

For example, I normally host Easter lunch at my house. This year, for a variety of reasons, it just wasn't going to happen. Right up until Saturday evening, Mark and I were still tossing around ideas of what we'd do on Sunday afternoon. We'd decided that we would just go home after church, eat leftovers and take our usual Sunday afternoon naps. I wasn't at all thrilled with the idea. But then Saturday evening, we had an offer to go to the zoo on Sunday afternoon. We decided Sunday morning that we'd go, and met some family there around lunchtime. This year, Easter was a picnic from KFC and the most fun I've ever had at the zoo. While it was a first for me, and I definitely felt a pang of sadness over things being different than they've always been, we made wonderful memories of this Easter. And I found myself telling Mark how happy I was that I didn't have to spend Saturday stressing over cleaning my house and cooking.

The new normal doesn't mean you forget the old. It means understanding that things change and learning to appreciate what once was. It means intentionally finding contentment in the new ways and learning to create new and different memories. And maybe...just maybe...one day the remnants of the old that we long for will collide with the new to weave a beautiful life of memories.