We packed towels, food, the kite and boogie board, a stroller, baby carrier, forgot the sunscreen and headed to the beach. As I’ve said before, I’m not a beach person. I love a good beach view but once I get up close there are lots of barriers to my full enjoyment. Sand being the biggest hurdle. So why do a beach trip with three kids, one of them barely walking? 

I’ve been waiting 4 months and 6 days for life to return back to normal. In my defense I’ve never experienced a pandemic before so my naivety comes naturally to me. It finally occurred to me this week that I’m living in normal. Right now is the new “normal” and if I don’t start recognizing that, I’m going to miss out on a lot of things. 

So we went to the beach. We wore our masks, we went late in the day, we strategized so as not to run into more people to avoid and we created some joy for our children (and surprisingly also for ourselves despite three kids wanting to run or crawl in three different directions all the while next to a vast ocean waiting to suck them up). 

We are living it right now, normal. Sure, it doesn’t feel normal. But unfortunately it’s not going anywhere. So how do I make the most of this time, right now? How do I push past the grief and frustration towards joy? For us it was sandy feet and bottoms, peeing in a gatorade bottle (not me, I held it for 3 hours) and flying a kite for less than 5 minutes (because despite unceasing requests to fly it for the leading weeks, it apparently was just a small itch that needed scratching). 

Don’t wait for this time to be over. Don’t get trapped looking for the return of normal. It’s here and it doesn’t look how any of us want, but that doesn’t have to stop us from finding small ways to adapt and enjoy.