When Your Normal Life is Considered 'the New Normal'

Lots of headlines recently about how people's lives are changed due to the coronavirus and stay-at-home orders. And granted, my life has changed too. I'm working from home, church is virtual, and my grocery shopping habits have changed. But honestly...other than that, my life is pretty much the same.

When the news talks about people staying home and not going out to movies and restaurants and parties and bars - I never did any of those things anyway, except for a few extraordinary circumstances.

When the news talks about how people are living more frugal lifestyles, are meal-planning and cooking for themselves and trying not to throw things away and reusing plastic bags and baking bread - yah, that's just normal life for me. Do people really not reuse containers and ziplocs on a regular basis? Do people just...throw away old bananas and not make banana bread? Granted, I do throw out things that have spoiled, but that's the exception. If I didn't carefully budget and purchases the cheap-but-just-as-good, my ancestors would come back and haunt me.

Don't get me wrong. This whole thing has hit me decently hard. Usually I don't get my hair cut but once or twice a year, but right now I find myself tugging on my hair and feeling like it's twice as heavy as normal. My anxiety when going to the grocery store has skyrocketed - I'm going to be even more agoraphobic than usual when then is over, I can just feel it. I desperately miss being able to visit my family and hug them - I'm this close to tossing my common sense and getting a cat just to be able to hug someone, and literally dreamed that I got a dog and spent a good portion of that dream just hugging it. I'm worried about whether my job will do furloughs or, worse, layoffs. I'm worried that my parents will contract coronavirus, or my nephew who has a history of lung problems.

I want this to be over.

I just also know I'm still very blessed. I have a job. So far, none of my immediate or extended family have gotten coronavirus, despite many of them being the medical field. I'm an introvert, staying at home is much less of a big deal than it is for extroverts. I have a steady income, and a good emergency savings. I'm able to keep in touch with family through Skype and Zoom. I'm able to find food, and I know how to cook it.

I still want this to be over.