Adjusting to a new reality (again)

"Adjusting to a new reality" was the title of the blog post I wrote in early April last year, the first I had written since the Covid-19 pandemic had turned all our lives upside down. It is quite possibly, a title I could have used a fair few times in the interim as we have followed the twists of turns of life in a pandemic. It is, certainly, one it seems apt to use now. 

Because here we are again, adapting, adjusting, to another new reality which we don't fully understand: even if this one is at least superficially more similar to the normal we once knew. 

And a bit like in spring last year, when I initially struggled to put the experience into words but knew that I wanted to; now too it feels important to try and capture this experience in all its raw reality. I have returned to this post several times in the last couple of weeks without making much progress.

There is so much that is so good about having reached step 3 on the roadmap, with step 4 hovering on the horizon almost in view. For over a year this is that towards which our souls have yearned.

• We have had visitors to the flat again. We have even had visitors who were there when we went to bed and still there when we woke up in the morning!
• I have experienced the generous hospitality of others, in their homes. I have been able to plan to meet or visit people without having a proviso of "but not it it rains." 
• The Stories of Hope and Home group have not only been able to start meeting again, but have even, at last, been able to drink tea together.
• I have blown a million bubbles and seen the irrepressible smiles of the families finally welcomed back to the Birch drop-in. 
• I have welcomed back the junior church children and been reminded how much it is valued by both the children and their parents.
• I have travelled outside Birmingham, have breathed in the fresh air of the countryside, and watched the sunset over the sea.
• I have a diary filling up with things which are not just yet more zoom meeting, I am seeing glimmers of variety where there was only mundanity, and I am recapturing a new sense of busy-ness and purpose.
• I have started to dare to make plans more than just a few days ahead and to believe that they will be able to happen.
• I have hugged friends.
• I have, I hope, remembered to be immensely thankful and not to take any of this for granted.

I am genuinely very happy about all of this. This is much closer to the life I love and want to live.

And yet, somehow, it would be dishonest to paint this as a picture of perfection with no downsides because that wouldn't entirely reflect reality. Despite, or perhaps because of the waiting, not everything about following this roadmap has always been easy and without issue. Sometimes it feels like we are supposed to be in full celebratory mood seeing only the positives as we step out along this road, but I suspect I am not alone in thinking there also still needs to be space to admit to the parts which are still something of a struggle. 

• Things are not yet "back to normal" and the ways in which they are also shine a light revealing the ways in which they are not. I, we all, are still existing in a heightened state of vigilance, a constant weighing up of what is ok, what is safe, a constant balancing and rebalancing of risks and benefits and I think we would do well not to underestimate the impact that living with that constant tension, of never, really being able to fully relax, is having on us. 
• Seeing again, really seeing, with the possibility of deeper conversations and more personal encounters, some of those I care most deeply about has of course been wonderful, but it has also revealed more clearly the toll the last year has taken, both on on group dynamics which need to be rebuilt, and on many of those individuals.
• The city centre is busy again: and I love the bustle and colour and variety and life of it ... but after a year surrounded by closed shops, the reopening has also brought into stark relief the hideous excesses of consumerism. I like seeing people, but seeing people choosing to spend sunny days queuing in order to shop for things they probably don't need is frankly somewhat depressing.
• Those who know me will know I am not very good at map reading ... and perhaps roadmap reading is no different! I have spent so many hours reading and rereading government guidance, writing and rewriting risk assessments. 
• I am having to relearn to build a routine in which time works differently: that whereas before a zoom meeting, it takes mere minutes to switch from one activity to the next, that when the meeting is elsewhere getting ready time and travelling time need to be factored in. There are good things about this: the liminal space between things which I have somewhat lost over the last year is helpful and healthy, but there's a definite readjustment required. 
• I am definitely an extrovert and enjoy and draw life from the company of others, and yet even for me, I am finding I am having to relearn how to exist in all these different social contexts and for all the joy and life it brings, and don't get me wrong, it really does, I am also finding it quite exhausting. It's a different kind of tired to the lethargy I have experienced in the last year, a better kind of tired, really, I think. But still, I am definitely going to have to build up my stamina again! I shudder to think how my introvert friends are feeling and hope they are finding a route along this map which works for them.

I feel like my "not so perfect list" became longer than my celebratory one. That probably isn't a fair reflection of the balance of how I feel. Overall I am very, very glad to have reached this point. Overall I will definitely take the exhaustion as a price well worth paying for the excitement of encounters and reunions and possibilities and plans. Onwards! 

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On another unrelated note: Blogger tells me that some point this month the current email subscription set-up will come to an end. I need to decide whether to look into setting up a different way of sharing my blog by email, or just relying on people clicking on it from time to time to see what's new. If you read this by email and would like to continue to get emails, could you maybe let me know. Thank you!