Norm Swept Away
“New Normal” is a new fast fading phrase that has joined our vocabulary. But when I look back over my own past personal forty years, I spot other times of “turning the page, ” as they now say, each time a new normal has begun,
“Downsizing” was a new word used for several years. And, I was in the middle of it. For fifteen years and more I had traveled the country as manager of the National Hot Dog and Sausae Council or for short was called “the Hot Dog Lady.” My public relations/marketing position was cut. Another comfortabale normal was as a adjunct professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond for seven years. A normal retirement followed.
Nor it’s time to change my attiude. I know turning the pages, and pages and pages is bringing me up to today. “Shelter in place.” Where did I hear that before–way back when I was in kindergarten in Los Aneles and we would do drills and hide under our desks in case bombs would fall. For a little while that was normal then. My best advice is don’t look back hunting for normal. Make your own. And, as they say in the Mindfulness Zoom class I visit, breath in and out and whisper: May I be safe, may I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be at peace. And, keep looking ahead! Normal seems to be a word that evolves into New Normal and then morphs into Normal again when we get used to the situation.
