May 23, 2020 — I’ve always loved this holiday. My family used to spend it on the beach. We used to watch the Indy 500. It was carefree and amazing.

After those times, in my days of working really hard, I tried to have the entire three-day holiday away from work. In my work, it was usually frowned upon if you didn’t work at least one day of any the three-day weekend, just like you had to work one day of the normal weekend. So a three-day weekend in actuality meant we got a weekend, you know, the normal two days. But there are so few holidays from Christmas-New Years to the summer that I usually needed the Memorial Day holiday to actually be three days. It let me sleep in. So I really tried to have all of the three days, tried being the operative word. It wasn’t always possible though because there always seemed to be looming deadlines.

Now we are in crazy times. A lot of people are having it hard. A lot of people are scared. Many people have perished. It’s, in a way, a modern war. Rations. Shortages. An possible depression looming. And this phrase “the new normal”. I swear I never want to hear those words again. I long for the days of normal. I long for the day when people kiss each other in the street in celebration of this thing passing, a sign that we’ll all be truly safe once again. Yet, they say normal may never come, that the cloud will always be over us. Even so, every cloud has a silver lining. Or so they say. Actually, I’ve flown through clouds, and I’ve never seen any silver, unless it was the aircraft wing, so no, I’m not going to say silver lining. I’m going with rainbow. No, not every cloud has a rainbow, but, for me, this one does. That rainbow is … time.

For a person who lived her life waiting for three-day weekends just so I could have two days off, this war, this pandemic, this whatever it is, has given me time. Time, because I made (and could get away with making) excuses to delay work deadlines — deadlines that are produced from work that will never amount to anything, but that’s an entirely different story and the thing I need to fix most in my life. In this, I’ve had time to spend doing things I needed to — the constant battle to find enough money to pay the bills. No, the hype you hear about providers not turning off your internet, or your cell phone, or your gas is not true. They all get turned off. But outside of that battle, I have spent an enormous amount of time on myself. Time to sleep in; forget that, to learn how to sleep in. Time to play guitar. Time to clean the yard. Time to plan the things that will make me happier. Time to just be me.

There are four weeks left before court starts again, or so the orders say. When it starts again, my life will go back to what it was. That means this person that I am will go back to what it was. My time will go back to not being mine. So as much as I hate the term the new normal, perhaps it has given me something completely unexpected. Funny thing, I heard a statistic that 70% of all people at home right now are not wearing pants. They’re wearing PJs, shorts, other things that go underneath pants, maybe even pink boxers, but not pants. Perhaps those people are wondering what it will be like to have to wear pants again. Me? I’m wondering what will happen to this new me. So I have to admit, while I want there to never be a reality of new normal, I really hope it’s not completely normal in the future, because I’ve gotten quite attached to the new me.

And the point of this holiday: people who paid the ultimate sacrifice. I am grateful for the men and women of the armed service who paid that sacrifice in our previous wars. I’m grateful for those who served, taking them far from this land and the people they hold dear. And in this war, outside of the normal thanks to the health care workers, yes I’m thankful to them, I would like to pay tribute to our fallen. To the tens of thousands who lost their lives, there are not enough 21 gun salutes for you, especially to the elderly in nursing homes. Those images quite literally rip my heart apart. I’ve had experience with that, and I see the faces of the people in those facilities who I’ve known and loved. And to the thousands of small business people struggling, please hang on. This country is yours; no this country is ours, and we are serving our country in this war.

To better times, times when we can all kiss in the street.

I couldn’t resist, sorry! After all, this was my last concert. Hopefully, not the last.