The irony in all this is that ‘normal’ never returned, at least not in the way I had known normal before. Sure, life got into a routine and that constantly hungry baby, grew into a constantly moving toddler, but the quiet normal of a life without children never returned. By the time my son came along, I knew better than to expect normal to return again. Interestingly, it was so much easier to integrate my second child into my life than my first. I suppose my expectations were lower. Perhaps my son was an easier child. More likely, I had learned that the house could be a little less tidy, and the laundry didn’t have to be perfectly folded. In any case, another new normal came along and life was good.
Life has brought with it a never-ending series of changes over the years; the kids grew from babies to toddlers to elementary students to pre-teens to teenagers, my partner and I separated, we each dated others and those relationships started and ended and started again, the world around us changed, and most unfathomably, my ex-partner, Amy, died suddenly in October.
Just the other day, I found myself, once again, thinking about life getting back to normal. In a misguided moment, I even found myself looking toward life ‘getting back to normal.’. The past six months have been hectic, emotional, and bone-wearyingly exhausting. It seems that the slow motion of the first few weeks after Amy’s death quickly shifted to life at a frantic pace. Work seemed to intensify, the kids’ needs amplified, the addition of Amy’s two animals into our household increased the animal care responsibilities tenfold, and now I share my home with my children full-time vs. the former shared custody arrangement. I find myself constantly tired, and yet unable to make time and space to actually rest. It has occurred to me that I might be manufacturing reasons to stay busy so I didn’t have to hold still and think about our loss. I have come to the conclusion that this is only partially true. Certainly, the anesthesia of being busy is helpful at times, but it isn’t everything that keeps life moving at the speed of light. The speed of life? Yes, that’s it.
So, as I anticipated life getting back to normal the other day, I also had a parallel thought. It occurred to me that life may simply be a series of reaching milestones, traumas, events, and occurrences which so dramatically change the dynamic of our world that our prior ‘normal’ can no longer exist and the normalcy of our life transforms into a new normal. The new normal ~ get used to it. Don’t get too comfortable with it though, because as surely as you get comfortable, something else will come along and change everything once again.
~ Mk Michaels
