Two years ago. That’s it, two years ago this week, spring break, was the last normal week we had. It’s hard to believe, but we never went back to school after that week. We had to home school, we had to figure things out. We had to make do. Two years ago we changed.
A lot can happen in two years. A lot has happened in two years. You look around now and it does seem like we are all back to normal, but are we….better question: should we be?
It would be easy to just wake up at the same time we did two years ago, to eat the same breakfast, go to the same job and fall back into the same habits. We can try and replicate our lives, the ones we were living then and hope for the comfort we thought we had. There is something to be said about normalcy and comfort.
But what is normal? And do we really want it?
I look back and try to see where I was two years ago. I had just started this blog, I was in the middle of working on some things, I was feeling good about being good. I was like most people, I thought I was living a good life.
Then covid threw a wrench into all that. I had to change things up, we all had to change things up. We were all introduced to Zoom, we couldn’t go to the places we normally go to, we couldn’t see the people we normally like to see. We had to experience discomfort.
In an instant, we weren’t sure what was going to happen. Was this life of isolation our new norm? Were we going to become a tribe of isolationalists?
The weeks soon after Spring Break I found myself having to home school my kid. I found myself having to get adjusted to a new work life. But something else happen too, something I wasn’t expecting.
I rode my bike more, I ate more ice cream, I learned to use my imagination again. For the first time in what seemed like forever, I was a kid again, because I was around my kid. My kid was teaching me more about living than I was teaching him…and I became thankful.
We played more, we laughed more and we talked more. I was a teacher, I was an artist, a baker, and the head tour guide. I got to explore the city with a child, and in the process got to see my city in a whole new light. I got to see my life in a whole new light.
I am used to walking the streets of my city, but when I did so with my kid, I found new places, fun places, places I wouldn’t typically stop and play at. And now I was, I was finding new ways to live in my old places.
Two years has brought a lot of change. We are slowly heading out of one pandemic and possibly into another…a war. The world feels crazy sometimes, and the times unsteady.
How many of us have lost a loved one during these last two years? How many conversations and dinners and laughs did we lose? How many “I love you’s” did we miss saying…how many did we miss hearing?
The last two years have made us better, but it has also made us worse as a society. Do we still care about the same things we cared about two years ago? Did we lose sight on what was important or change our minds on what we think is?
Two years is enough time to build skyscrapers. It is also enough time to destroy them.
What have you learned in the past two years? Or did you learn anything at all? Are you happy to get back to normal? Were you satisfied with your old normal…or do you want a new one, a better one?
Two years. Think about how you spent these last two years and now think about how you want to spend the next 40? Is the way we lived recently the way we want to live going forward?
We thought we were at a crossroads months ago, but now we really are. We thought we were out of the woods of isolation and sickness, but now we are at the crossroads on if we really want to stay hidden in the forrest.
Do you want to stay mad or do want to make happy happen?
We lost friends due to death, and we lost friends due to social media. Our circles became smaller and our world too.
But now is the time to let people back in, to our hearts and our businesses. The world will always be a crazy place, but that doesn’t mean we have to let it drive us crazy in the process. Life is about living, or did we forget how to do that two years ago?
We need our tribe, we need one another, we need love.
Two years ago the world changed…do your part to make sure it keeps changing for the better.
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