We finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. This pandemic looks like it is nearing its transition to an endemic (oh please let this be true!). While we may never be without this particular coronavirus, we can perhaps get back out into life with the new “normal.”
I recently went to a theater show – Mean Girls – after being without live theater for almost two years due to the shut down and rescheduling. My kids are fully vaccinated, and it was time to get back out into the world. So, my friend and I slapped our masks on and showed our vaccine cards and tickets and entered the beautiful old theater for a show! It was surprisingly normal. People still chatted before the show and at intermission. People still laughed and reacted to the show. It was all muffled behind masks, but it was still obvious people were enjoying live theater and all the feels!
It felt normal, or pretty close to it. It made me think about what it is to be Normal. It's like before, but with masks and a bit of increased anxiety in large crowds.
After reconstruction surgery, I wasn’t sure I would ever feel normal again.
I will always have a nipple-less left breast (I do have the option to put a fake one on but choose not to for now). I will always have a ripple across the lower left side of my left breast. It’s just how the saline bag sits in there. It’s likely only noticeable to me. It’s MY new normal. I can almost say I have gotten used to it. In fact, there are days I don’t remember I even have fake boobs!
But I won’t ever get back to the pre-cancer diagnosis normal. Normal needs to be redefined or is constantly being redefined for or by me. There are days when I feel like the people in my life are talking loudly at me, all at the same time, and I hear nothing. The cacophony of life sometimes jingles and jangles over me as I continue to walk. I escape somewhere else. I can’t even explain where I go.
It reminds me of a scene in a rock musical called next to normal. The story is about a mother who struggles with worsening bipolar depression and the effects that has on her family. The musical introduces us to grief, depression, suicide, drug abuse- all in plain sight in a relatively "normal" suburban life. In this particular scene, the husband of the main character is singing about how he cannot reach her, and her grown son, who is actually a figment of her imagination because he died when he was a baby, is also singing in competition with his father. The song is about who knows this woman better. The husband, who has fought bipolar disease alongside his wife, or the imaginary son, who has been in his mother’s thoughts for his whole life. The song crescendos into her declaration that no one knows who she really is, even though they have traveled her journey and struggled alongside her. All she wants to do is find the light, find her normal.
In this example, she is still in the journey, as she may never be “cured” of bipolar disease. She lives a life of unprocessed grief, surviving day to day. Figuring out how to live. I won’t give away the ending, but you can google it…..
Some days, even though I am not being treated for cancer anymore, I feel those emotions. I feel like I need to survive day to day. I feel those people around me talking to me (or sometimes yelling about something if it's my children), even though I am somewhere else. There are days I feel like I need to find the light.
So, what is the new normal? I still don’t know. But I do know it will constantly need readjusting, reassessing and acceptance for what it is. It just is what it is. For now, there are days when I don't have my cancer journey in the forefront of my mind. There are days when I take brief breaks from worrying about the next coronavirus variant. Today, that is the new normal, or perhaps, next to it.
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