The Third Stage
It’s hard to imagine life ever entering a third stage; as in, if what we thought of as normal life is stage one, and our current normal is stage two, there must be a stage three that is not stage one OR stage two. A time when we can leave our house, but we’re still carrying baggage from being in lockdown, so our normal looks different once again.
The third stage.
I think about 2023. Yes, by 2023, we must be well into the third stage. 2022? Yes, probably in the third stage zone. I keep trying to creep the date closer and closer to now—could we possibly be in the third stage this summer? How about June? I’m pretty sure it can’t be May.
I have to believe that the third stage exists—not just for my sanity, but because I can look at history and know that people live through time periods and come out the other side. These types of reminders are getting me through thinking about the here and now.
There’s a reason these lines were the most highlighted ones in the piece:
But I don’t worry for long. Because I’ve read a lot of history, and I know that scary unknowns aren’t unique to our present circumstances. We actually live with a lot more knowledge, understanding, and predictability than people have throughout history.
Leaving this post here in case you need to gain some breathing space, too.
5 comments
That piece (and that line) gave me comfort too. I still can’t breathe if I think too far ahead.
Right now at this moment I can’t imagine ever flying again. Or staying in a hotel. Ick.
And sending my kids to school…even if staggered/spread out desks etc. If it’s not safe to go back “regular” then it’s not safe!
I feel like right now I’m kind of in a cocoon where it’s mostly safe. I can deal with staying home, working while kids do distance learning, going to only one store only biweekly. I’m scared of when things open up pre-vaccine. Then, even if we have a good vaccine, what about the next pandemic??!
I really love this idea: “scary unknowns aren’t unique to our present circumstances. We actually live with a lot more knowledge, understanding, and predictability than people have throughout history.”
I wonder if one of the privileges we aren’t even aware we have in modern times is a relative sense of stability and predictability. I bet civilizations of the past had much less of those two things than we do, even now. But we feel their absence.
I agree that there will be a new normal. Pandemics always seemed hypothetical – a bit like serious earthquakes in NZ before the Christchurch earthquake ten years ago. But they’re not now. We’ll never go back to that relative innocence.
I think there’ll be two new stages, to be honest. Or there will be here, at least. I think there’ll be the next stage, which we are coming to quite soon, which will be when we are free to do whatever we want within NZ, but perhaps have to maintain some form of mild social distancing. And as you say, that could go on for another year or two, enough to change our behaviour perhaps forever. But then the next stage, your Stage 3, when the world tries to get back to a new normal – I don’t really want to think about how long that will take. But as you say, it will end. And we will get through this. I hope the world will be wiser for it.
I love that link.
I don’t know why I thought my children would grow up in an relatively easy world where we were finally leaving the old tribal ways behind into a brighter and better future.
I know I have been insulated by privilege and the past 4 years have definitely shaken me from my slumber.