I’m trying to be a person again.
I don’t know exactly what that means, however. There’s no roadmap for the latest new normal. The old normal — now obsolete, apparently — was pre-pandemic life, which we’ll never return to. As offices open back up and many places discard mandates and restrictions, people are still getting Covid. And many of the lifestyle adjustments we made during the pandemic are permanently ingrained — permanently altering our relationships to work, ourselves, and others.
My apartment now has an abundance of plants, for example. My closet is packed with comfortable sweatpants and nap dresses. My family has regular group chats on Zoom, and I’ve yet to meet many of my virtual co-workers IRL. Two years of this behavior and it’s definitely considered normal now. Yet, the “new normal” denoted a time of social distancing, reduced in-person interaction, and sanitizing grocery store fruit. Whatever this new period is, it’s something entirely apart from the old times, and, frankly, I do not know how to navigate it.
The Vibe Shift
It doesn’t help that the social landscape we’re heading into is completely foreign. Culture has changed. When we retreated into our homes in March 2020, Instagram was king and I had no clue who this Julia Fox person was. Now, TikTok is the judge, jury, and executioner of all things popular, rather than the fringe social media platform it had been pre-lockdown.
With such seismic shifts, the world changed utterly. Fashion is purposely incohesive, alternative aesthetics are mainstream now, and Kim Kardashian is dating Pete Davidson! I don’t know what’s up and what’s down here. I feel as though — at any moment — I’ll discover I mistakenly entered an alternate universe and — any moment now — I’ll be ushered back to my real life, where things make sense and UGGs aren’t trendy again.
Yet, as every day passes, I keep vowing to do my silly little tasks and perform a 2022 version of adulthood until it feels real, I realize it might be like this forever. I might feel dated and defined by nostalgia for the whole rest of my life.
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