I have returned to Lafayette, LA and plan to spend the next few weeks here. With the hectic events of the past few months over, I feel like everyone’s lives are returning to normal around me.
I feel strong urges wishing I could go about my normal activities. I want to go back to all the normal things I use to do, at the normal places I would do them, with the people and friends I would normally do these things with. The realization sinks in that my normal no longer exists and will never be the same again.
Unable to go back, I find myself facing the tedious task of starting over.
Daily tasks, that at times seemed so simple, now are daunting and overwhelming in front of me. The long drives, quiet nights, hectic mornings, quiet Sunday afternoons sometimes found among the many adrenaline filled weekends are all things that bring back cherished memories but now loom ahead seemingly impossible to navigate.
There is a vacuum that exists around me now. Although I find myself pushing out of it for periods of time, just as I think everything feels okay, someone will say something familiar or a brief memory will come over me and send me back into it. This vacuum is not necessarily a sad place, just a place where my emotions, whatever they are at the time, can surface freely unaffecting to others around me.
The question surfaces, “Where is normal anyway?” Looking back, I may have always struggled with this, especially whenever attempting to define it in comparison to others standards. I don’t think normal should be a standard of which to adhere. It is something we define individually throughout the course of our lives. While some struggle to find it, others struggle to move beyond it. We all get comfortable within it. It is this comfort of normal that I strive to find again. How long this will take I have no idea. If I can’t go back, many times I wish I could skip ahead and be anywhere but here and now. I just want to feel normal again.
Lyrics to a great song claim that “the hardest part of ending is starting again”. Although I am still unsure where to start, I can only trust that as I move forward each day it will become more apparent.
