NORMAL TO NEW NORMAL A SHORTER WALK

Exercise geeks always have something wrong. Not the biggest complainers in any room I’m in, but it’s always something. Why? Because small nagging aches and pains are proof of a finely tuned machine.

Like a racehorse where every muscle glistens down the backstretch. Or a fastball pitcher, guys who look like their arms break when they whip it.

Gifted athletes adapt to their new normal once the gift fades a half step, a few mph. What makes them great isn’t what keeps them there. Looking at you, RGIII.

Cancer recovery gets called a ‘new normal’ more often than a ‘better normal.’

No one has ever called the results of surviving cancer and cancer treatment a better normal. The reasons why far outnumber the reasons why not.

But still?

Consider definitions that don’t need redefining. Cold is cold, hot is hot. Fast is fast, slow is slow. And normal is normal, whether it’s old or new.

People write books on normal, more like the perceived norms. Why books? So we can read them and judge ourselves in private. Counseling is so public. It’s easier to lie to ourselves than convince someone who knows better, and knows we know better too.

My advice for cancer recovery, and thanks for asking, is to start dwelling on the deepest meaning you can attach to life, especially if you’re on a short clock. Tip to terminal cancer: We know you’re there waiting. We don’t need a therapist to slow walk us toward seeing you.

Deep meaning, deeper meaning, deepest meaning? Wtf, right? How deep? New normal deep.

Start with the idea of seeing eternity in a grain of sand. Zen stuff, I think. So go to the beach and find that grain of sand. Hold it up between your fingers while you face the ocean. What do you see? Not the sand, but the ocean. That’s the eternity the sand brings you to, the rhythm of the universe.

Start late in the day so you get one of the best experiences on earth: the sun setting behind the water. On a clear evening the stars brighten slowly over your head.

That’s a new normal. Share it.