Stop waiting for normal to come back
Summer didn’t get the memo that we have a global pandemic on our hands
I am a bit of a packrat. Some of it is due to the creative frugalness of my childhood — when printer paper doubled as toys and scraps of food could be repurposed into delicious inventions. Some of it is due to my sentimental nature (which I never regret more than when it comes time to move) — ticket stubs, bits of shell from beaches I can’t remember, unused gifts I feel badly getting rid of, candles I’ve collected and have been saving to burn.
A few years ago, I read an article in passing that stuck with me like a pebble in my packrat shoe (you know, the one that hurts my big toe but has the essence of sophistication that I paid good money for). It was about burning candles — the fancy ones, the big ones, the good ones that you “save for a special occasion.” It argued that this is how you honor a candle’s purpose — to light it and use it instead of carting around your collection from apartment to apartment like deadweight potpourri. And that perhaps the normal days can be enough of a special occasion to warrant the use of our best things.
As our weeks of sheltering-in-place and battling an invisible enemy have dragged into months, I feel tired of holding my breath. Of deferring and delaying and pausing life until things “get back to normal.” This holiday weekend feels especially strange, as if summer did not get the memo that we have a backlog of life to tend to and a virus to defeat and pounds to shed before it can come flaunting its tanned self in our midst. I am in desperate need of the extravagance of big occasions and holiday weekends and yet trapped by the desire to push them off until we can do them right.
I want to wait to burn the candles. Wait until things feel normal again.
Perhaps, like me, you feel the impatience and the rush of wanting to get back to life. Perhaps we have forgotten that life has never stopped. That each day — filled with mundane routine or tidal waves of emotion, with adrenaline-spent bodies and tired minds, with rowdy ones to tuck into bed or the silence of a quiet home, with dish-filled sinks and too much screen time — perhaps each day is now a special occasion. These may not be the days we would have wished for, but these are the days we have been given.
So maybe today is the day we burn the candles and pop the champagne. Today is the day we tell those we love why they are special to us, even if it’s nowhere near their birthday. Today is the day we look at our lives — our messy, imperfect, perhaps painful lives — as an occasion that merits celebrating simply because we have it.
Someone asked me the other day if I had my life to live over would I change anything.
My answer was no, but then I thought about it and changed my mind.
If I had my life to live over again I would have waxed less and listened more.
Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy and complaining about the shadow over my feet, I’d have cherished every minute of it and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was to be my only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.
I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.
I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.
I would have eaten popcorn in the “good” living room and worried less about the dirt when you lit the fireplace.
I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.
I would have burnt the pink candle that was sculptured like a rose before it melted while being stored.
I would have sat cross-legged on the lawn with my children and never worried about grass stains.
I would have cried and laughed less while watching television … and more while watching real life.
I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband which I took for granted.
I would have eaten less cottage cheese and more ice cream.
I would have gone to bed when I was sick, instead of pretending the Earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren’t there for a day.
I would never have bought ANYTHING just because it was practical/wouldn’t show soil/ guaranteed to last a lifetime.
When my child kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, “Later. Now, go get washed up for dinner.”
There would have been more I love yous … more I’m sorrys … more I’m listenings … but mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute of it … look at it and really see it … try it on … live it … exhaust it … and never give that minute back until there was nothing left of it.”
— Erma Bombeck, written after she was diagnosed with cancer
