New Normal

Last week, as you saw all of the remembrances of 9/11/01, where did they take you? What did they do to you? The thought was profound as I considered how life has changed from that moment. From those moments in which I was standing in front of my class on a Tuesday morning at my first teaching job after college to where I am today is a gap beyond comprehension. I was engaging a classroom of poorly informed, undisciplined students in whom I was trying to instill the gravity of the moment. They couldn't get it. I remember the laugh of one student in which comprehension was impossible in his movie consumed world. In his world, when the credits rolled, all was back to normal. Life was not going back to normal after we turned off the news, after the end of this day. A new normal was created. The life that has transpired in the last ten years in our little corner of the world has been lived in this new normal. Or, maybe we should call it the never normal. In my world, this involved three more years of being single and teaching, 3 years of being married and doing administration, and now 4 years of living in Jamaica. Oh, did I forget to mention the 4 kids, the moves, the laughter, the trauma, and the profound realities/joy of daily life. This is the never normal life in the midst of the new normal. We must remember! We must mourn! And, we must Rejoice!