The Elephant in the Room

There’s this giant elephant in the room, dark gray like a storm cloud that we’re all afraid to look at. It’s there and no, I’m not talking about the Coronavirus that has us all locked down on “voluntary” house arrest. I’m talking about the fear. The fear of an enemy none of us can see, that none of us can fight. We talk of this disease, we send warnings, we beg people to do their part to “flatten the curve” and stay the F%CK at home. But we don’t always talk about the fear we are all living in from day to day. Not the fear that we might die, that those we love might die. Not the fear of where we’re going to come up with rent money, food money. Hell, not even that strange and random fear some people have that they will run out of toilet paper. I’m talking about the fear of what happens next. The one thing we’re all afraid to admit: that we’ll never go back to normal. The fear that EVERYTHING has changed.

It has.

We want to go back to the way things were, want to visit our favorite restaurant again, want to not be afraid of strangers on the street. We want to go back to normal. But our normal is gone. Nothing will EVER be as it was. This is changing EVERYTHING. And it should. We’ve lived too long ignoring our connection to each other, our connection to this planet. We can’t deny that anymore. All of us, everything human on this planet, is connected through this single fear. We aren’t alone in this and we aren’t alone in facing what’s coming next. We’ve seen some amazing things these past few weeks. We’ve seen heroes and we’ve seen some really disgusting lows in human behavior. More we’ve all been faced with our mortality, with how fragile our lives and society really are. Do you really think you can just go back to work, back to life as if nothing happened? All of us are being affected by this, all of us are being CHANGED by this. It’s my hope that it’s a change for the better.

I don’t know how it’s going to change. I can’t see the future, but one thing I know is our government is going to change, our laws, how we handle crisis, is going to change. Financially many of us will be crippled, but more as a nation we’ve been irrevocably affected and we’re all going to feel it. Nothing is ever going back to normal and I just want to tell you: That’s ok. It’s called evolution. It’s what has kept us as a species from dying out a long time ago. Growth, change, hurts. But it’s ok. Because we’re not in this alone.

Normal has changed, but so have we.

Stay safe and sane and know: It’s going to be ok.