Let us face it. Most if not all of us have been caught off-guard with this pandemic.
We still long to return to the old days where we could to go our offices, cafes, visit friends or family, running around like headless chickens in the pursuit of happiness.
The lock down brought a sense of distance to those days. But for people like me, it also brought a new form of anxiety, which is manifested in my desire to cling on to what I know, what I love to do and what I fear to lose.
For the new normal, the return to how things were, it might not be enough to continue supporting systems that contributed to fuel this sort of anxiety. This is because the elephant in the room, the different selves or identities that what we used to get by, are still there.
And we will have to learn to live with these different guys, being now more anxious because of a greater risk to lose them, or to see them go.
But where would we start in the new normal? A spell of honesty with ourselves could help.
Myself, I woke up today and after a hectic week of trying to keep the work-life balance 'right'. I realise that I have used the pandemic, and it has used me to do things that my selves wanted to keep: finish writing a book, publishing an academic article and writing a few more, whilst keeping a good parenting role. I have also learnt to wake up later than before, do more physical exercise and gardening, and catch up with old friends and things that I thought I did not have time to complete.
In this new normal, my life has still busy and not so busy moments. I have tried to keep some 'precious' things at all cost: my job, my writing, my family, my health. The good friends to have coffee with and vent our mutual frustrations are now at a distance. For good or bad, the remote family and the children are closer.
The new normal has allowed me to keep these and other things. However, some days I feel tired and sometimes angry with myself and the world. Why is that? Is it because I try to keep the old (committed, perfectionist) and have some new 'selves' (i.e. the sporty one) at the same time?
I fear for the return to the 'normal', for the realisation that I need to let go of some of these selves. I wish I could let go of a competitive-creative self: : feeling demanding audiences in colleagues and students, engaging in fights about our 'novelty' and 'contribution' on a daily basis, attending requests to get funding, travelling, evening meetings or plagiarism panels. This on top of being the 'good' parent, whilst my bank account balance disappears nearer the end of each month. And my other creative, writer self, is still here.
These realisations have made me acknowledge that the new normal for me needs to be, paradoxically, very abnormal. It would need to be inclusive of uncertainty, self-compassion, introspection, human-sized jobs, doing good enough, touching fragility, developing simple education, enjoying nature locally, breathing, accepting frustration, welcoming the other selves in myself and my loved ones.
And if possible keeping the writing going.
In the new normal, my electric bike is also still waiting to be used a bit more.
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