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As the COVID-19 crisis abates,
how do we do normal again?
BY DAVID JASPER • The Bulletin
T
he world changed swiftly in March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began to shut down Oregon. Job commutes became
telecommutes. Layoffs were rampant. We got to know the term “front-line worker.” We learned all about Zoom. Masks became a second
skin. We took up new hobbies and pushed bandwidths to the brink, binge-watching all the shows we could.
Now, with rising vaccination rates,
we’ve moved to a lower risk status, and
toward some approximation of nor-
malcy to return in time for summer.
Soon, even the most introverted of us
will be expected to emerge. Restaurants
can accommodate more diners. Offices
are still a thing, in spite of costs. (Hey,
CFOs, I know how you can save some
money!)
We’ll have to relearn how to do
in-person encounters. And put up with
noisy colleagues and microwave odors
and wear dress pants and tuck in shirts
and … this will be terrible.
Not necessarily, says Bend psycho-
therapist Lara Schwartz. When it comes
to how to do normal again, Schwartz
has some advice.
OWN YOUR EXPERIENCE
“It’s normal to cope with a crisis by
just putting your head down, going
forward and doing what you need to
do,” Schwartz said. “If somebody didn’t
have an experience that was gnarly or
drastic — in terms of they lost their job,
or a family member got very ill from
COVID or died — unless it was some-
thing like that, I think people felt like
they don’t have a right to acknowledge
their experience so much.”
“Sometimes people will say, ‘Well my
life didn’t really change’ … or ‘I didn’t
have anything bad happen,’” she said.
“I think people are not registering the
more underlying and pervasive and
sometimes subtle effects that living
through this past year and a half has
had on all of us.”
123RF
As COVID-19 risks lessen and society moves forward, Bend psychotherapist Lara Schwartz urges people to be easy on themselves.
Even if you feel like your life didn’t
change much relative to others, there’s
nothing normal or stress-free about
quarantine, isolation, wearing masks or
any of the other changes the pandemic
engendered.
“For most of us, it felt like it hap-
pened suddenly. One day you were at
work, and then you were at home, and
there was a really scary reason why that
happened,” Schwartz said. “We can’t
see anyone, and we all have to not leave
unless we absolutely have to. Just that
alone, those few months of that inten-
sity where the world stopped, that’s
trauma. That’s very scary.”
On top of its intense start, the long
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