One of the emails in my inbox recently advised me to address the anxiety I might be feeling after 18 months or so of pandemic. Oh, right…I totally forgot to address the anxiety I’m feeling, because that’s all I need to do. (Insert smirk emoji here.) But that’s just addressing the pandemic anxiety…for many of us there has also been surviving a Trump administration and the havoc it wrought on our country—including the mishandling of the pandemic. It has been a long five years if you want to really take stock of what’s been causing stress and anxiety. I am right there with you, because—if you’ve forgotten, I’ll be happy to remind you—in the last five years I lost my Mom, my sister, took care of my dad for four years, then he died but not before we lost our grant due to COVID for the program we ran. So, yeah. I’m right there in the “Life is Hard” category. And now that we’re older? We’re expected to handle it better and be grownups about it. But it’s still hard. It still takes time and effort. And when we’re older we need a lot more naps.
But in addition to anxiety, there’s an undercurrent of anger to deal with. In a recent essay, I referred to a number of parents and politicians who are crusading against mask wearing as if they have some actual data to support it rather than just their own selfish reasons. I felt vindicated when I caught an episode of the NPR show 1A, entitled, “Vaccination Impatience: The Anger Towards The Unjabbed,” which echoed many of my own thoughts. It also discussed how to understand the anger that we’ve been feeling.
So, now we have anger to add to our anxiety. They’re angry, we’re angry, everyone’s angry. The anti-mask/anti-vax people are revealing a cognitive dissonance that defies common sense. Suddenly the CDC can’t be trusted, Dr. Fauci is suspect and the so-called “libs” are the ones manufacturing information. They go to marathon lengths to find “experts” to support their cause, experts who act as aggressive, insulting, and misinformed as the anti-mask/vax folks themselves.
It can be a little much, even for grownups. Personally, I’ve noticed I employ detachment as a coping mechanism at times. I call this detachment, “self-care.” I sit under a blanket and find a funny TV show and let an hour or six pass in relative calm. (Ted Lasso is my personal hero.) I think about all the people I know who are figuring out how to handle this turn of events in American history because a lot of them have a lot more than I have to deal with right now. Others have family members who won’t get vaccinated or still think Trump is president. I know people who have lost loved ones or whose lives have changed drastically in the face of the shutdown and pandemic. I am lucky because most of my friends and family are vaccinated, will wear masks if necessary and respect my feelings about still using Zoom. I am mostly comfortable going out and about masked, but I haven’t been accosted or harassed—yet. However, if it does happen, I still have that recliner, my blankie and an Apple TV subscription to help me get past it.
I feel unusually confident about moving forward, even in the face of such unprecedented unrest and uncertainty in our future. There is a lot more work ahead of us; individually and as a community and nation. Right now, I think, there’s nothing more important than reaching out and connecting to our friends and family and remembering that we love each other and care for each other. If the pandemic taught us one thing, it’s that we can still communicate with each other through all the technology at our disposal—texts, emails, FaceTime, etc. And old-fashioned mail, too. Times are not as scary as last year when we had to visit our kids behind glass doors or car windows. Not that we have to resort to that anymore, but just in case, it’s an option and we know how to do it. There’s no guarantee that life will be good, but when it’s hard, I can guarantee that we can get through it.
Because we already have.
You read my mind!
What doesn't kill us doesn't kill us...rev Kim Harvey