Word of the Week #246:
So, as I mentioned a couple of weeks back, I’m kind of experiencing a frog infestation in, well, my bathroom.
Back then, I expected it to have been a random, unexpected happenstance. Since then, it has become pretty clear that that is not the case.
Now, if I enter the bathroom, I EXPECT to find a frog staring right into eyes.
If I don’t find one immediately, I look for one. Odds are, it’s hiding just out of sight. If I know where it is, I won’t be spooked.
That’s the new normal, I guess. Looking for frogs in my bathroom so that I don’t accidentally step on them or grab them… again…
It’s weird how our definition of normal can change so fast and so inconspicuously. It is how we are built. It is how we survive change.
And yet, we need to keep reminding ourselves how “usual” and “normal” are not the same things.
There are some things we should not consider normal, no matter how usual they are.
Frogs in my bathroom.
Toxic relationships.
Abusive spouses.
Fascistic governments.
Unprecedented pandemics.
No matter how much we may get used to these things, we must continue to remind ourselves that this is not how things are supposed to be.
We all remember the story of the frog who kept sitting in the gradually heating pot of water, kept getting used to it, and did not consider it necessary to jump until it was already too late, right?
Frog… getting boiled alive… Ugh, that brings back visuals.
Anyway, NOT NORMAL.
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