I often sit and ponder,
When the sun is sinking low,
What lies yonder and what the future holds…
So goes a popular song from the Catholic hymnbook.
I often sit and wonder what this “new normal” means. Everyone seem to have embraced the term so easily and moving on like truly that’s how things are meant to be.
So the new normal is for me: wake up in the morning, get on with my normal chores in the house divided into sections for online school, make shift office and this other section – a corner to cozy up and listen to never unending news of the global CORONA VIRUS pandemic and the sorrow, tears and blood it has left in its trail.
Are we to accept this as the new normal?
I often sit and ponder, will there ever be a time again that I will have to run from one room to the other looking for the car keys, screaming on top of my lungs “guys let’s go.. We are late…Open the gate, don’t forget any book ooh… “ The chorus goes on and on.
Back from school runs, time to tidy the house and move on to the next activity for the day, meetings, work, attending to customers and taking in some nice moments with satisfied customers and some very rude ones that almost make you regret why you opened for the day. I miss all these so much.
How do we then begin to normalise this isolation? This loneliness that is almost giving everyone a mental breakdown. Yes, we cherish our families and the time this new normal has afforded us to bond more, to see ourselves as we truly are, to test and try our patience with one another and how much we can tolerate our children’s shenanigans, our spouses overbearing demands that often seem so disturbing and nagging. The new normal has exposed the true meaning of love and sacrifice. How much do we give and how much are we entitled to receive, even though a great lesson in life says give and expect nothing in return, for what is charity if not given in love?
Can we really embrace this new normal, running to the same world wide web we were very cautious about, sacred of how it swallows our children, influenced by so called social media influencers.
What a pity, so sad that WWW.COM has become the center of our existence. Yes indeed its all we have for now if we must be updated in our business, education, association and fraternity of some sort, we rely on the internet even to get stuff done, we endlessly search Goggle! Ah! Is this how we pondered the future will be in 2020 and most likely beyond?
I tell you dear friend, this life we have now, we never envisaged that it would ever be this way. TELEVISION now seems to be the greatest invention of man! Indeed it is our new normal for Teleworship, Tele-educate, Telemarket, Tele everything…Even something as intimate and scared as marriage, we Tele do thee wed! If eventually we de-televise, wedding bells would ring and no asoebi, no large gathering, no hugs, no face to face chatting without a mask, sitting so far apart, no elaborate hosting. Hmmmm the new normal would now be, you may elbow the bride as you greet or congratulate her.
Till I write again I love you for reading.
Ambassador Adaobi Alex-Oni writes from Lagos.