Get Up...Go On

I don’t know about you, but today, I’m feeling pretty much bummed out.  I don’t know what it is about today that makes me feel that way.  Physically, I feel fine.  Emotionally and mentally, however, and probably spiritually as well, things aren’t going so well.

Yes, I know we live in a different time with the Covid 19 pandemic.  Yes, I know many others feel much the same way I do.  Yes, I know that we are keeping stores closed and other people at a distance for a good reason.  But that doesn’t seem to have much of an effect on how I feel this day.  I think it’s a kind of a combination of things that are bringing me to this point.

I miss the interaction with people in the stores I normally haunt.  I miss the handshakes and the greeting hugs from others.  I miss the opportunity to get something at a sit-down restaurant.  I constantly am thinking about handwashing and hygiene.  I continually evaluate my recent past actions and whereabouts for any signs that I may have been exposed.  And the list goes on.

This stay-at-home thing is work.  It is mentally taxing.  It occupies space in my mind better suited to other things.  It sucks energy that is supposed to go to caring for self and others in a more “normal” manner.

And I don’t’ even stay at home.  Church work is exempt, for the most part, from the stay-at-home order, so we come into the office, at least for a short time pretty much daily.  Life goes on for our members, friends, and others we serve.   But there’s something that defies simple explanations of how people work and what makes us tick.

As with other things of this kind over history, we will get through this.  We will learn things.  We will vow to never let it happen again.  Politicians will fall over themselves claiming credit for any success that may be and distancing themselves from any failures.  We’ve been through enough of this kind of thing to know the drill.

And so it goes, to borrow a phrase from Linda Ellerbee.  Although we may all feel discomforted and out of sorts in some way, we have life to live as long as we have breath to breathe.  One doesn’t have to feel jolly and carefree in order to function.  One just needs to just get up and go on.