I realised today that the decisions I’d been making for the past weeks had been centred around waiting, and the expectation that normalcy will return. Eventually.

Work seems to have come to a standstill, because I’m waiting to get back to normal work rituals when this ends. Then I’ll catch up on my goals.

I’d stopped all exercises, because it’s risky to head out, and I thought, I can hold it off till it gets back to normal. Then I’ll get back to my fitness objectives.

I’m eating more junk than usual, thinking that it helps me emotionally since I’m staying home so much, might as well treat myself a little better. After all this, I can eat wholesome and well again.

I’m not reading books anymore, enriching myself as much as I did previously, because I always did it as part of my work ritual outside, and home doesn’t lend reading vibes well. When normalcy returns, I’ll start reading something not related to the virus again.

Life basically had come to a strange limbo. And we’re all just waiting. Waiting for lockdown to be lifted. Waiting for the safe distancing measures to be retracted. Waiting for the malls, shops and all our favourite haunts to re-open.

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

For normalcy to return.

But what if there isn’t a normal to return to? From the likes of what the politicians are hinting at, this pandemic is a marathon, and we’re all in for a long haul. One year, a few years? Even after that, in the absence of an effective vaccine, there’s no relaxing on the hygiene measures, is there?

I’m not sure what’s normal anymore. Perhaps there’s no normal to go back to, and this new normal where we wear masks, wash hands, distance from one another, stay home, will be how life is like hereon.

Should I continue waiting? Life somehow has to go on, right? I feel like I can’t keep waiting. Yet, the hope that normalcy will return, is easy to get caught in. 

If this is how life will be like for the indefinite future, how would you face it?