COVID-19 has forced us to live in a new world. Let’s adjust our emotions, too

Recently I saw a microcosm of the COVID-19 world in my local post office.

The post office had very responsibly posted a notice on its inner lobby door that informed visitors that only three people could be in that space at a time. So I was among several people waiting to enter the inner lobby; in fact, the line was so long that it was snaking its way outside the post office.

When my turn arrived to go inside the lobby to mail a package, a female customer who was already at another counter began to yell angrily, loudly and eventually profanely at the clerk who was helping her.

And why was this customer so angry?

It was because the clerk had asked the woman to go back out into the main lobby to pack the mailing box she had just bought.

The clerk told the customer that after she had packed the mailing box, she could come back inside the lobby to mail it off.

But the woman would not leave, even after she was told that her refusal to go outside the lobby was preventing others from being able to enter it.

Eventually, the post office manager came to the counter to persuade the customer to leave — which she finally did after first directing a barrage of profanities toward the manager.

Most of us were calmly waiting in line.

We understood the need to practice social distancing — and the need to adhere to the post office’s rules to protect everyone’s safety.

Yet this one customer simply refused to follow the rules, and her anger at being “inconvenienced” was as palpable as it was outlandish.

The fact is that as we emerge from the restrictions put in place during the early days of the pandemic —and start to move toward some sort of calibrated normalcy — we will continue to be confronted with behavior like that shown by the customer in the post office.

We will continue to see displays of emphatic defiance by some individuals who will for some reason resent the “burden” of having to wait in line, wear face masks, practice social distance and pay attention to the guidelines intended to keep everyone safe.

But these are the new realities of the new normal. And those who still refuse to respect these new rules aren’t just being selfish — they are putting the lives of others at risk.

Fortunately, however, we are also seeing how far charity and consideration of others can go in helping everyone cope — as does the realization that we need to work together to get life back to normal.

For example, I love how word will spread in my neighborhood that Walgreens should toilet paper available on Thursday — or that you might be able to find hand soap in Publix on Monday.

The sheer fact that so many of us are trying to provide information and assistance to others, even on a small scale, exemplifies the word “community.”

But the best thing we can do in this new normal is to monitor how we respond during the moments that will inevitably test us and our emotions.

Let’s keep our tempers under control.

Let’s keep our frustrations in check.

And let’s allow the sense of community to guide our reentry into the COVID-19 world.

We really are all in this together.