A New Normal

This post is dedicated to my friend, April, who's been having a really rough time lately.


When Sarah came home from the hospital, we had some adjusting to do. We had to get used to having a baby in the house again, living on little sleep, and had to figure out how to do that without ignoring our three year old. We had to learn how to be a family of four. Of course, Sarah went back to the hospital 10 days later for emergency surgery and our lives changed completely. We didn't have to worry when she was going to meet her milestones and when she would walk, but instead worry about if she would meet them and if she would walk. Our lives were filled with doctor's appointments and therapy and all these things that we had never experienced before. It was not what we were expecting, but it was what it was. We had to find a new normal.

In small ways, people find a new normal everyday. When you get married and start living together you have to adjust to your partner. Even heathens that live together before they get married go through this because it's just a little different when it's legally binding. All of a sudden you became a we and you have to get into your new routine. A new normal. When you have a baby, it's not all about you anymore. You have to take care of the needs of another person and your twosome is now a threesome and things are just a little off. You don't want to do everything you used to do, like go out to the bars or stay up really late. So you adjust this and that and get into a schedule that works for everyone. A new normal. The same happens when you start a new job, move to a new city, lose lots of weight, there's so many examples of ways you switch your life around.

Some times you don't choose or have control of the changes in your life. Especially the bad ones. This is where life gets difficult and you see how tough you really are. They say that God never gives you any situation you can't handle, that he gives you challenges to show you how strong you really are, but I don't always want to be that strong. I have a friend who's daughter has severe food allergies. So much so that they can't eat out in restaurants, she makes all their food from scratch-bread, chips, foods we completely take for granted-and whenever they go to largely populated places such as Disney World, she has to write "Please do not feed me, I have severe food allergies" on her kids' arms in Sharpie marker in case they get separated or someone tries to give them some food (Surprisingly enough, I was a Disney with a friend one time and a total stranger gave her kid food from his fork, yuck! Luckily that kid had no food allergies). She is a nervous wreck at the beginning of each school year wondering how the teachers and staff will handle her daughter's allergies and if they will know what to do if she's contaminated. Yet she had to go on, she has to live her life. They had to find a way of doing things that worked for them. A new normal.

I have another friend that found out her Kindergartner had Leukemia. All of a sudden they had doctor's visits and chemo and hospital visits and were doing all these things they never dreamed of like medicines and shots and a very hungry little girls pumped up on steroids. A year and a half into it, that's just how it is. All of those things are a way of life and it's just what they do. Their new normal.

Everybody's normal is different, but it's normal for them. I don't know many little kids that go to yoga and therapy, but Sarah does. In fact, her therapist is one of her best friends. They've been working together for almost four years and I can't imagine what life would be like if we didn't see her every week. It would be good, but it wouldn't seem normal, because she is a big part of our new normal. Except it isn't that new, so now it's just normal.

Even if Sarah was 100% tomorrow and completely healed, our life wouldn't go back to the way it was. We know too much. A little bit of innocence was lost. Our world changed dramatically. We've dealt with it, and continue to deal with it, but it will never be the same. She's doing fabulous and can run and jump and climb, but she can't do it as well as the other kids. She can't take dance or ballet and she still has to wear braces. None of the other kids wear braces. Her brother and sister don't wear braces. The real problem is going to be when the baby starts doing things better than her. It's okay if Andy does, because he's older, but it won't be okay when Amanda does.

I guess what I'm trying to say is bad things happen, and it stinks. Just because worse things happen to other people doesn't take away that something horrible has happened to you. Yes, Sarah doesn't have cancer and she's, hopefully, going to live a long life, but that doesn't take away from the fact that her situation kind of sucks. However, what seemed impossible in the beginning, seemed like something that we were never going to get out from under, has just become part of our lives. Part of the routine. Do I wish it wasn't? Heck yes. But it's not going to go away and so now it is just a normal part of our lives. It's there and we're doing what we can and we're moving on.

So will you, because you're strong, whether you feel that way or not.