Throughout this year, from time to time, people ask me how I am. I have appreciated that. But I never know how to answer it. Compared to many people I know; I am doing great. So, I generally say that I am doing good. But it does not really feel like “good” to me. Here is how I really feel, right now, today – and pretty much every day:
I feel angry. I feel frustrated. I feel defeated. I feel tired. I feel alone.
I am angry at those who perpetrate the nonsense going on in our world. I am frustrated at those who do not see that they are the ones supporting and encouraging the nonsense going on in our world. Worse, some of them do see and think that they are right. While our world falls apart……
I try to make a difference. I try to be involved, but I am never needed, what I have to offer isn’t quite what is required. My words, if not dismissed, are overruled. What I have to say, if not exactly wrong, is not exactly right either. I have always seen things from odd angles – people tend not to follow those angles. Every idea I have of what I could do, how I could make a difference – falls flat. Defeated.
I am just so tired of it all. My teenage daughter has no life, she lives in her room. Her best friend has a mom who is so terrified of the virus she will not even allow Lizzy to meet her daughter in a park with everyone wearing masks. Her other friend lives an hour away. My son, whose great love is people, being out in the community, loving on everyone, is grounded. He sits and plays cards at his computer in front of a Zoom meeting, not participating, because of language issues, but wanting to be there, just so he can hear and see his friends. It makes me so sad. There is nothing I can do…. Thankfully, he has a provider who does what she can to get him out of the house, doing what little they can find to do. Sometimes that is just walking around a store. My husband’s hours are severely cut. Finance’s are okay, but only because we do not have to make house payments through this. He holds his feelings in, but I know, he is as sick of all this as I am. I am tired of seeing my family suffer. I am tired of not being able to do anything to make it better.
I have always been, or at least felt like, one of those people who live in the margins. Included out of politeness, but not out of a desire to actually spend time with me. Last one picked to be on the team. This has been true all of my life, for various reasons. I am an odd duck. I know that. Always have been, accepted it long ago. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel alone. I need friends. I need human contact. I am not a phone person, I hate them. Zoom meetings while maybe better than nothing – are not much better than a phone call. I need to SIT with you. I need to HUG you. I need to sit at a coffee shop and chat – like friends do. I need to SEE your face. I do not read eyes very well. I will assume you are giving me a negative reaction if I cannot hear and SEE your positive one. So, without the smile, the open mouthed “Me too!”, I will not get it. Maybe like my son, I am bit Autistic. I don’t know. The places in which I thought I might have found that have succumbed to the words of the world. It holds more sway then needs of us insecure weirdos. It has shown me what I already really knew. I have only 1 good friend – an hour away. The people closer, are only being polite.
So, in this fear of a virus, that has never lived up to its terror of overwhelmed healthcare. The numbers now seem to tell us, that for the vast majority, it is just a flu. It is a virus, it kills, like the flu does every year. Is it more contagious? Yes, because it is new. But we cannot change that. We must just get through it. Is it dangerous? Yes, so we need to protect those for whom the danger is great – but not ALL of us. The big difference with this one? We are letting It kill jobs and our economy, kill with suicide, kill education, kill hope, kill churches. Then there is the insanity of so-called social justice, which is anything but social or justice, it is just anarchists tearing our world apart. Many of those who should see it – don’t. An election is in process. The result of it either way, is not encouraging. Either way really – the anarchists will have their way – at least for a while – if not for the remainder of our country’s life. Now I have let my views be known. They are honest, and this is, if nothing else, and honest post.
I try to look to God. But while I know He is there. The world is a dark place right now. I can’t see when, if ever, it will improve. I know I have a hope beyond this world. But this world is where I must live right now. I had hoped for friends in the Christian community that would have walked beside me, but for this reason or that – they are not here. The encouragement they try to give seems always framed in some way to excuse what is happening. Never just “I know this is tough, let’s just walk together through it”. I know I share the ultimate responsibility for my relationship with my God, but a little help would be nice.
So, how am I? I am hanging in there. I am surviving. I am still searching for a foothold. I am able, on some days to praise God and feel peace for a while. I am thankful that I do at least know that Jesus is holding on to me, because He has held on to me through much tougher times. That knowledge is sometimes all that brings me through a day. But it does bring me through.
How are you?
