Our lives have changed tremendously over the years. As time has gone on, the world has evolved, questionably in the eyes of some. Certain individuals may have a negative outlook on how the world turned out perceiving it to be a sign of regression. With the pandemic finally coming to an end, and the urge to get back to the normal swing of things, everyone is seemingly scrambling for normalcy.

But what is normal anymore? How can we even define normal if everything seems to be so abnormal nowadays?

It’s unfortunate how our sense of normalcy was lost and has yet to be found. The saddening part about it all is that we have no clue whether we’ll ever get that piece back into the now fractured world. Over the last two years, we’ve dealt with major setbacks to not only our culture but society as a whole. A way for us to cope with those hardships was by simply keeping busy, either on social media, staying in touch with the news, or being immersed in the various forms of entertainment that were released throughout the pandemic. At first, it was great, it almost felt like time off or a moment to relax. It gave students like myself a breather from the normal routine, but for many, all it did was create more issues. Layoffs, unemployment, and financial instability ensued for much creating chaos. Nobody knew what to do with themselves.

Everything was out of control and to be frank, the world was severely underprepared for a crisis like the pandemic. Slowly but surely, we were able to make it through, yet people still seem so flustered by it all. Interactions amongst individuals are different, people appear to be more upset and divided. It’s almost as if the world lost a fundamental portion of itself, the portion being a sense of care for one another.

After the highly controversial political climate and other factors during the pandemic, nobody seems to be on the same page. With that came hate and negativity that spread like cancer that happened to be noticed far too late to remedy. It’s frightening seeing the world through the lens of fearful clarity. A clarity that I wish was distorted.

Maybe it’s me venturing into adulthood that’s opened my eyes, but it’s hard to believe that the pandemic didn’t have even the slightest effect on the base of societal morale. I have hopes that it’ll get better in time, but lately, it hasn’t seemed like it has been. I wonder what it’ll be like a few years from now. Will everyone still be so angry, lost, or even confused, or will we all move on from the confinements of the past? Some may remain trapped by what may have felt like shackles through the height of the pandemic, but others will see a way forward.

For the betterment of society, we can only hope that more individuals discover that way and can distance themselves from the disarray. At the end of the day, we all attempted to remain healthy and sound throughout the pandemic. That collective effort is what we need to overcome the trauma and damaging imprint it has left on our lives. Only then will we be able to recover. A recovery that will take years, as we slowly rebuild not only our economy, and health, but our ways of living we once viewed as unchanging.

The reality of the matter is that all of our lives changed at a moment’s notice, and there was nothing we could do to stop it from happening. We were forced to adapt, endure and survive as information regarding COVID had spread across the world. To us all, it was new and fear-inducing not knowing what was to come. The fear of the unknown started to become very apparent. That’s what the world should be scared of more than ever. We weren’t prepared for the pandemic. We weren’t prepared to lose control of our lives. We weren’t prepared to lose sight of the good old days. Let’s hope that if there is ever a next time for such a crisis, we will be.