It can be hard. Remember, for example, that after the Crash of '29 sent the economy into a tail spin, that was followed by year after year of economic shrinkage. In fact, the economy didn't start growing again until March 1933. And that's not even the longest recession on record. It was just 43 months, whereas one US recession lasted for 65!
The reason we've become used to the idea that strong and consistent growth should follow the end of a contraction is because Fed policy made that common -- the Fed would cut rates dramatically, flooding the economy with money, and the economy would take off. But 2019 was weird. In 2019, despite very low unemployment rates and inflation rates above the Fed's target, the Fed not only failed to hike rates as it always had before in such a situation -- they actually pushed through multiple rate cuts! As a result, when the pandemic hit, there was little ability to cut rates still further, since they were already near record lows. So, this is more like those older times of 43- or 65-month-long recessions, when we couldn't count on big rate cuts. Basically, the Fed had thrown away most of its tools back in 2019, in order to try to super-heat the economy to get Trump reelected.
Also, post-COVID-shutdown weakness hasn't been uncommon. Take Germany, for example. Their real GDP shrunk in Q1 of 2021 and again in Q4 of 2021, and was virtually flat in Q1 2022 (just +0.94% annualized), such that their economy is now smaller than it was back in third quarter of last year. France was also down in Q1 2022. Japan fell in Q1 and Q3 of 2021, and again in Q1 of 2022. The idea that somehow it should be a given to have consistent and strong GDP growth after COVID lockdowns ended is something that may play well on Fox News, for obvious reasons, but it doesn't play nicely with the real-world facts. Around the world, countries are struggling to reestablish consistent growth.