I know what to do if an earthquake hits. Drop. Cover. Hold. How many times did we practice this when I was in elementary school? We seemed to be endlessly preparing for the big one. Now I’m working at a museum where we’ve spent the past few years preparing our Great Hall for an earthquake. We live on borders of fault lines. We’ve seen the consequences of massive earthquakes that have hit Japan time and time again. It’s so ingrained in our west coast culture, almost as much as what to do if you see a bear. Something my students in Germany were amazed by. I taught them an entire lesson on how to be bear aware as part of their English learning. There are just things that we grow up with here on the wild Pacific northwest that we are prepared for. We were not prepared for a worldwide pandemic.

As a society we seem to have this capacity to come together during a crisis. How strange is it that I look back with longing on the first year of the pandemic. It was the time of pots and pans ringing out every night for our frontline workers, it was a time of long, thoughtful walks, when Zoom and video chatting with friends and families and coworkers felt exciting. I talked to my east coast American family more during that year than I had perhaps ever. Don’t get me wrong. It was also terrifying and awful and we didn’t know what to expect every single day, but on a personal level I felt a sense of community. A sense of connection.

Here we are, an astonishing four years after the start of the pandemic. I can and can’t believe it. I feel like life is overall more normal, and yet completely different. I know I, for one, am different. A combination of the stress of the pandemic, the uncertainty of what every day would hold and the time of my life (entering my 40s) brought on the endless and debilitating struggle of chronic migraine. I’ve had migraine disease my whole life, but this past four years has taken it to a whole new level, where it’s rare for me to have a whole day that is not somehow effected by an attack. It’s hard for me to know these days what is caused by my illness and what is caused by the ripples that continue to effect our world post-pandemic.

After doing seemingly normal things, I feel a level of exhaustion these days that I have never experienced before. A day at the office, an outing with friends or family, or a day that I have multiple commitments. These days can knock me out so hard that the only thing I can do is hole up at home with Netflix and my cat. I wait for my former self to return, but it never happens. I settle for this new, seemingly lesser version of myself. I was not prepared for this.

I wait for the world to right itself again. Will it happen? Am I dreaming? Does every generation who goes through something massive like this feel the same? I read books about people who survived wars. I look for clues. We come together during a crisis but how do we do afterwards? Do we rebuild? Do we reconnect? Do we heal, or do these wounds sink deep into our bones and become part of our DNA. Is this “new normal” (sorry, I hate that expression too) our new reality now? We seem to have swept so many lessons that should have been learned the past few years right under the proverbial rug. I begin to wonder if I’m the only one feeling this way. In some ways I feel more isolated than I did when we were told to isolate at home.

I feel like I am still under the desk, waiting for the rumbling to stop. Others have gotten up and have continued on with their days, but no one told me it’s okay to come outside again. I peak my head out and the world looks almost normal, but not quite. I wonder when this feeling will end.