Trying to mask fear or reroute it into anger will not change its existence. The only true way to combat fear is to embrace it and change.

Why were desks so uncomfortable? We spent our education shifting around in those God-awful seats. The tingling in the legs was usually the first clue that you must move or risk amputation. It seems no matter what school I was in or how interesting the lecture, the need to save my rear end would overwhelm my thoughts. It would consume me and impede my brain from absorbing my lesson.

With the new CDC guidelines to “the new normal,” I am again overwhelmed, consumed, and impeded. I want to focus on my life, this wonderful classroom we call earth, but the tingling from being still too long has stolen my joy and my capability to learn. Shifting in place is not helping. Running, yoga, I still just feel stuck. Finishing off the bottle of wine from last night just temporarily made me forget I had legs. How do we care again about the content we are supposed to be listening to when we are in stasis?

My second grader’s teacher allowed flexible seating in her classroom, which I thought was a brilliant idea. My daughter is a human, I’m proud to say, and like all humans she needs to move to think. We all feel our most anxious when we are stuck in place. So, to sit in a bean bag, rocking chair, or shoe-sized see-saw not only helps a child from feeling anxious but allows blood flow to the brain for retention. This solves a centuries-old fear of losing your legs to lecture. The amazing teacher who started flexible seating deserves a gold star for flexing her brain too. It only took one teacher watching a bunch of adults shifting in their seats in Starbucks to change the classroom instead of getting angry at her kids for acting human.

So again, I wonder, are we stuck in this timeline to think, and think big? I believe we need some new ideas for revamping old systems. I am sure that most people, like me, would like to take the CDC guidelines and burn it, just like that fourth-grade desk that you could only mar with deep scratches of your pencil to look like the claws of a caged animal. But the hope here is the CDC guidelines are to get back to “normal” remember? But what if “normal” is not what we are heading back to? The second-grade teacher who came up with flexible seating wasn’t trying to figure out how to set up desks like we always do, she wanted to change the way we understand seating in the classroom. As a result, instead of caging our little learners, it gives them freedom! So maybe we are angry at the CDC because we did not want a guide to normal after quarantine, we wanted a guide to freedom from quarantine.

As we read the guidelines and plan our steps ahead of reopening, let’s stop thinking “new normal” and start thinking “new systems.” What if instead of terrifying the public with an unknown timeline of masks, sanitation, and distancing, we just start smaller and break our systems back down to communities? What if we hunted down little buildings and opened community schools until we can return together? What if we went back to the traveling preacher to worship with small groups in basements, barns, and backyards? What if doctors went back to house calls? I’m not saying it will be easy to change the systems, but it is worth considering over fear. It’s also worth considering over squeezing ourselves back into our pre-quarantine life when we have the extra pounds of new ideas.

We can embrace that fear may not ever go away. Embracing this may allow us to flex our brains and think outside the old system to build a “new system” we can all accept. Maybe fear is just the tingling we need to remind us to move, to remind us to stand up, to remind us to embrace, to remind us to change.

Melanie Winter

Melanie is the Director of Marketing and Content Writer for WinternetWeb Technologies.

Melanie writes content for clients to promote marketing and branding in her web development business. She also writes for a blog and local community history projects and publications. She earned a Bachelors from Virginia Tech in Communications, English, and Religion. Melanie also enjoys writing fiction, spending time with her two daughters, antiquing, gardening, and community volunteering.