Avoiding a Return to "Normal"?

All around me there is excitement about a “return to normal”.  It could be easy to get caught up in the excitement that this crazy experiment, the first in our life-time of its kind, might be nearing an end.  Yet- I find myself hesitating.
 
How can that be?- A return to “normal”, means a possible return to time alone? A return to “normal”, means a possible return to time for self- care!  A return to “normal”, means a possible return to time for things that have been on my To—Do list for over a year!  A return to “normal”, means a possible return to having time for even thinking about what I could do with more time!!  Yet- I hesitate. 
 
I have been thinking a lot about that hesitation lately and I think it comes to this:  I might want a “closer to normal” but I am not sure I want to go back to just what we had before.  Going “Back to Normal” feels like going backwards.  It makes it feel like the past year+ hasn’t actually happened and though it has been hard, and not what I ever would have wished for, there were some things that were pretty great. 
 
A few years ago we had a chance to move back to the place we had left to live in to Northern California.  We had loved living there.  Yet- we hesitated.  In the end we decided not to make that move because it felt as though it would have been too easy to revert back to a life that we had lived 5 years before. 
 
Though it was tempting, we couldn’t ignore that those 5 years changed us.  We learned, we grew, we matured (I hope we did at least- but not too much!), we were not the same version of ourselves that had left the city we loved.  We acknowledged that there were things that we missed- things we hoped to regain- but a complete reversal was not what we wanted.  So we chose a different location, close to, but not in the same path as before.
 
Similarly this last year+ has offered many unexpected things.  Some of those have not been so great but, if I am honest, some of them have been unexpectedly wonderful, or at least unexpectedly insightful, and I am not sure that I am willing to lose those in a quest for perceived normalcy. For we learned, we grew, we matured (I hope we did at least- but not too much!), we are not the same version of ourselves that started this different version of the life we are living. 
 
With that in mind, instead of wishing you a “Return to Normal” I wish you all chances to find your “Chosen Tomorrow” and options to find ways to bring the unexpected beauties, of the recent past, into the new version of the furture we all have the chance to create.