Repeatedly, I’ve heard these words (^^^) used to describe the way we’re living now—especially the uncommon behavior(s) we’ve adapted to and adopted.

Trouble is, they’re neither new nor normal.

Despots, disasters, and debacles have a long history of turning our “standard operating procedures” into inappropriate behavior and questionable conduct.

It hit me the other day when I saw almost everyone in our immediate vicinity, as well as images beamed from across the globe, wearing facial masks–which is a good thing!

Except for those who refuse to wear them.

Because, like so many other matters, masks have become political statements of which side you’re on. Basically, it boils down to “You’re not the boss of me; you can’t tell me what to do” vs. “Please, people: it’s not about you, it’s about public health and the greater good.”

Yeah, right. Try convincing conspiracy theorists that their preferred sources of news and information are either confused, conflicted, or callously (and covertly) compromised in spreading their own versions of reality for certain reasons, ends, and purposes.

And all those alternative visions are producing a feeding frenzy for the media, where each and every tidbit is taken and shaken as utterly imperative “Breaking News!”

The media feasts on food for its fodder.

Talk about thickening plots …

Isn’t it weird that stock markets are soaring to their highest levels ever, when 30 million Americans aren’t working and can’t buy food for their families or pay for the roofs over their heads? Yeah, I know: they’re betting that the future will be better by far than the past. How many people are still collecting – or applying for –unemployment paychecks? Or scratching subsistence from food banks and the largesse of others? How is it that so few have so much, while so many have so little? Why is it that some people hate immigrants (who pay taxes), but not billionaires who don’t? Isn’t that, too, riddling the new normal?

When did it become about keeping folks out of the USA, rather than welcoming them in? “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” speaks not about the rich or the elite, but the wretched, despised, and despairing. Children separated, yanked, from their families and kept in cages like captive animals. Rather than bulding walls, we should be opening doors and creating sanctuaries.

Atlas shrugs and havoc reigns.

Has there always been so much selfishness and hatred blowing in the wind? Or, are we yet a generous and good-hearted people?

We’re used to political party put before principles. Now, however, we have angry pretenders preceding both parties and principles. Follow the leader, you know, no matter how crazy.

It’s happened before … when times weren’t “normal.”

If it isn’t politics and protests, then there’s the weather. Crazy, climate change weather with uncontainable fires, scorching heat, flash-flooding rainfalls, the Everglades drying up as the Amazon burns, earthquakes, more frequent hurricanes, monsoons, typhoons, tsunamis.

Our increasingly endangered wildlife bespeaks species disappearing while they’re hunted for personal pleasue and stolen for keepsakes. Meanwhile, we continue to dump toxic waste into waters already bloated by plastics and packaging.

Which is why some fault our overindulgences, lack of care to protect the environment, and continuing dependency – guns for gas – on non-renewable energy sources as the biggest and baddest “new normal” of all … except, of course, for the pandemic.

Corona virus. Covid-19. But not the “China” virus.

“COVID-19 has me obsessed with how close to death I am, at tables set up in the street, in roaring traffic, with only a flimsy plywood partition between me and a brutal, bloody finish,” posts an articulate friend online. “I just don’t sit in the avenues, only the cross streets; it’s safer …” Yeah, let’s hear it again for the new normal!

It’s not normal – neither new nor usual – for contradictory information to be flying around, with statistics and sound bites. Whether it is what it is or isn’t lacks definitive answers or a common denominator. That’s senseless and stupid. Not to mention confusing (I just did!).

Like sending children to school in the midst of this crisis. Or hanging out in bars. Or not nationally mandating mask-wearing and social-distancing. Or participating in round-em-up rallies. And who’s going to take the vaccine (when it’s available) and who’s not, after all?

“One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small …”

Nor is it normal for artificial intelligence, like Facebook, to know more about our personal lives than we, ourselves, do. Not only are the so-called “social” media collecting every last lick of our digital DNA, but they’re using the data to determine what we do and where we go from here … selling our most intimate “psychographics” to any and all bidders.

Endless squinting at tiny mobile screens when people gather, close enough to look deeply into each other’s eyes and share elbow-kisses. But they prefer immersion in their digital devices over face-to-face contact. It may not be new, but it sure ain’t normal.

There are some who contend we’re actually living in the realized visions of Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Handmaid’s Tale, Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies. Whatever. To me, it feels like we’ve either stepped through the looking glass, down the rabbit’s hole, where Cheshire cats and “Off with their heads!” are the norm … or that we’re inhabiting Twilight Zone nightmares from which we can’t shake off the sandman’s dust.

Insanity.

But only if we truly accept this as “normal.”

Let’s face it: totally abnormal is what it is, instead.

Please don’t cry for me, America … or Portugal and Spain, for that matter. Let’s wail for our world and work together to fix it, returning us to a real sense and semblance of normal.

Shared here are personal observations, experiences, and happenstance that actually occurred to us as we moved from the USA to begin a new life in Portugal and Spain. Collected and compiled in EXPAT: Leaving the USA for Good, the book is available in hardcover, paperback, and eBook editions from Amazon and most online booksellers.