Dan Sinker, writing for Esquire, wonders what is normal after two years of the pandemic.

Going back to normal is the wrong direction anyway. We need to move forward, to build new lives, better lives. Lives that address the inequalities laid bare in the pandemic, that pay people doing work we deemed “essential” two years ago wages that reflect it; lives that offer healthcare that doesn’t just address the current emergency but the fact that all of us live on a razor’s edge all the time; lives that give parents the support they desperately need; lives that lift up black and brown people who bore the brunt of the pandemic’s harshest outcomes; lives that feel like they’re worth living, for everyone. It’s possible. I have to believe it’s possible.

I love the idea of moving forward. We probably aren’t going back to the way it was in February 2020 ever again. It all changed when March Madness was canceled, and Tom Hanks got COVID. Maybe the turning point was when celebrities started dying like John Prine, Adam Schlesinger, Terrence McNally, Nick Cordero, and Herman Cain.

In any case, we must learn from our mistakes and go on. It’s the only way to do better. Everyone should learn from this experience, dismiss the old ways’ familiarity, and start thinking about the new.

New is the new normal.