I remember waking up four years ago, to my partner – who had been up all night – greeting me with: “Good morning president Trump”. I thought I was still dreaming. I wished I was still dreaming. I wasn’t dreaming.

At the time I expected it to be one big bang. World War III. The bomb. Annihilation of the human race, because there was a narcissistic, egotistic, maniac behind the wheel and he’d locked the doors so we couldn’t get out.

In the end it turned out to be lots of little bangs. Slowly eroding social cohesion, human rights, and even something so fundamental and universal I thought it could not possibly be questioned: the truth.

With a wistful longing, I remember a simpler time. Oh, that we were back in the 1990s, when presidents were presidential (give or take a sex scandal or two), news was news, and the porridge was porridger.

Oh yes, the good old days of ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia and nuclear testing in the Pacific, a voice from somewhere inside me answers.

Okay, the 80s then. Big hair, whacky fashions, catchy tunes.

Great choice, the voice says, sarcastic as ever. Chernobyl and the growing AIDS epidemic. Good times.

Alright, alright, I see your point. Then just, give me one more yesterday. One more normal day.

It hasn’t been a very normal year. In fact, the world has already changed beyond what we could have imagined a year ago. But we’re still standing, in our “new normal”. We’re still loving, helping, trying. We are doing our best.

Things can get worse, yes. But they have been worse too. We just couldn’t Google it, or sign an online petition against it. So perhaps this is the last normal day. Perhaps we will wake up tomorrow and face a brave new world.
It’s okay though, we’ve had a few of those by now. We will face this one too.