9. New normals

I love thinking about the human capacity for adaptation. Our ability to adjust to new circumstances and situations is pretty amazing when you think about it. I often think about what new normals I’ve come to accept. There’s that feeling when you move house and you think, “I can’t imagine not getting this bus home every day.” And then you move, and it’s like you have never known any other home. Or what it feels like to go from being single, to being married. I remember how it felt the first time I said, “my husband”. It was weird. Now, it feels totally natural.

When I first found out I was pregnant, for those first 12 weeks, I felt like I was carrying around this secret that was so special and so scary at the same time. It was so strange to feel my body changing. Now, I look like I’m smuggling a cantaloupe and I’ve forgotten what it’s like to not have a big round belly.

When we found out about Junebug’s complications, our world got turned upside down. Everything we had imagined, or assumed or pictured in our minds, was shaken up into a jumble of disbelief and unknowns. And now, nearly a month later, it’s our new normal. We live with it every day, and I’ve forgotten what it was like when my pregnancy felt carefree and straightforward.

But there are lots of positives that come with that new normal. I think about what used to weigh on my mind during the week: work, the untidiness of my house, whether I was getting a little chubby, whether I felt happy and fulfilled with where I was—it’s funny how those things have been shuffled, too.

My new normal isn’t steeped in anger and dissatisfaction with my circumstances. There’s no point talking about whether something is fair—it is what it is. We had a painting when I was little that had a painted quote over raw checkerboarded canvas, for some reason, it popped back into my head out of nowhere the other day:

I do not like the way the cards are shuffled, yet I like the game and want to play. So, through the long, long night, unruffled, I play what I get until the break of day.

We all have the cards we are dealt, we can’t always choose what they are, but we can choose what we do with them.

My dad once told me, that if everyone in the world threw all their problems into a big pile, and you could pick anyone else’s, you would instantly snatch back your own.

I tell myself that we’re able to handle more than we think we are. It’s in our nature to adapt and survive, until one normal becomes the next new normal. It’s hopefully what will keep my Junebug here with us, too.