What Does Normal Mean Two Years Into Pandemic?

This idea of moving forward and pulling along what we have learned through the pandemic is something I have been thinking about. "Going back" and "normal" suggest a comforting familiarity, but aside from time only going in one direction it also suggests we would not learn from what we have experienced.

Going back to normal is the wrong direction anyway. We need to move forward, to build new lives, better lives. Lives that address the inequalities laid bare in the pandemic, that pay people doing work we deemed “essential” two years ago wages that reflect it; lives that offer healthcare that doesn’t just address the current emergency but the fact that all of us live on a razor’s edge all the time; lives that give parents the support they desperately need; lives that lift up black and brown people who bore the brunt of the pandemic’s harshest outcomes; lives that feel like they’re worth living, for everyone. It’s possible. I have to believe it’s possible.

We improve by learning from our experiences. And this all doesn't start on the top and come to us as individuals. I think it starts with all of us as individuals.