What is normal?
In New England, patience will be rewarded with lilacs. (Image by Adina Voicu)
I’ve spent approximately half of my life in Maine and the other half in Georgia. I know both places very well.
In Georgia, the daffodils of spring show up around Valentine’s Day. In Maine, you have to wait until April.
Meanwhile, the sun rises and sets over an hour earlier in Maine than it does in Georgia.
Having grown up in Maine, I was used to all of this. But spending a number of years in Atlanta has distorted my sense of time even more than the coronavirus lockdown. The arrival of blossoms and mild temperatures in Maine now seems agonizingly late. And I wake up with the sun thinking that I’m behind schedule.
It looks like 7 AM on a day in early March in Georgia; instead, it’s 5:30 in Maine, in May.
Nothing is how it should be. I’m supposed to be in Georgia right now, anyway, getting ready for the end-of-the year events at the Little Middle School and preparing for Eclectic Music summer camp. I’m supposed to be making summer travel plans, seeing friends and colleagues, and preparing for the school year ahead.
Yeah, I could waste a lot of energy thinking about how things are supposed to be. But I’m much happier if I adapt to where I am, even if that means putting on a down parka to go for a walk on a spring evening. Everything is canceled, and that’s what’s normal right now.
Most of my life’s misery doesn’t derive from my circumstances directly. It comes from the gap between my expectations and reality. I see this in my students a lot, too. They become frustrated and demoralized when they believe they should already know and understand a concept or already be good at a skill. If they are “behind” relative to someone else’s timetable, they jump to the conclusion that they are inferior. “What is wrong with me?”
But just like spring weather, there is a wide range of normal. Some babies walk at nine months, others at eighteen months. Some people are ready to grasp algebra at age 12, and others take a couple more years to get it. There’s nothing wrong.
It’s a bit of a leap to say that there’s nothing wrong right now, but focusing on the “wrongness” never helps me. Instead, I can accept how things are instead of living in the fantasy of what was supposed to happen. Leaves will be here by Memorial Day weekend, and Memorial Day weekend will be spent at home, just like every other one. These things are normal.
It’s also normal to have trouble adjusting to change, to grieve losses, and to long for things that cannot be. There is no right or wrong way to deal with everything that is happening, and I hope that you can have compassion for yourself as you work through it.