You experience a small change. Something outwardly minor enough that it goes unnoticed by people around you. You notice it because it’s persistent and uncomfortable. Being persistent, you’re always aware of it at some level, and it comes to the forefront of your attention when you are busy with nothing and have no distractions. And you wish for things to go back to the way they were, fearful that as long as this change persists, you’ll never be able to enjoy things to the degree that you could before.

But I think you can. Given enough time, the stress born of the uncomfortable change will become so mentally and physically taxing that the current state of things will replace the way things used to be as the new definition of normalcy. How long this transformation takes to occur depends on the severity of the uncomfortable change.

Maybe it seems like I’m trying to talk about life in a deep sense. I’m not. I’m referring to something very trivial and light. It’s like walking out of the dentist’s office silently cursing them because the work they did changed your bite, upper and lower teeth not meeting each other in the familiar closure manner. But given a brief time, you grow accustomed to the new bite.

Awhile ago I had an irritation in my throat. I had the impulse to cough, but coughing wouldn’t clear it. After a couple weeks, it finally went away by itself. Or maybe it never went away and instead established itself as the new norm that now feels comfortable.