The novel coronavirus has provoked global anxiety.
No one does anxiety better than Americans. We got this! Tablet-holding toddlers, medication-popping adults, and binge-watching families, we are continually armed with distraction.
The new reality hits and despite appearances, Americans are coming apart at the seams. We are so desperately trying to hold onto our normal routine. Creating classrooms and gyms in our homes. Checking in with work constantly, because the work doesn't just stop. Does it?! Wondering when the quiet will end. Our president, struggling with his own feelings of vulnerability to the quiet, begins to promise that the end is near despite the consequences. We are all clinging onto the relational common denominator to ourselves and each other, busy-ness.
Remember the days at the grocery store when we weren't frantically looking for toilet paper? We would run into our neighbors. Exchange pleasantries. Perhaps embrace or shake hands. (Gasp!)
Our conversations would commonly include how busy we were. How we wish we could have more hours in the day. More sleep. More time for all those things we claimed to want to do. Now we have it. In spades. The Netflix shows we've wanted to binge are running out and we're lost.
How do we define who we are? How we are doing? For the first time, perhaps since the dawn of the digital age, we might have to answer those questions honestly and without a qualifier.
Breathe. This is good news. Let it go.
*Note: This blog speaks mainly to those staying in their homes during the Covid-19 pandemic. I am grateful to all those who are on the frontlines of this crisis, from our hospitals to our farms.
No one does anxiety better than Americans. We got this! Tablet-holding toddlers, medication-popping adults, and binge-watching families, we are continually armed with distraction.
The new reality hits and despite appearances, Americans are coming apart at the seams. We are so desperately trying to hold onto our normal routine. Creating classrooms and gyms in our homes. Checking in with work constantly, because the work doesn't just stop. Does it?! Wondering when the quiet will end. Our president, struggling with his own feelings of vulnerability to the quiet, begins to promise that the end is near despite the consequences. We are all clinging onto the relational common denominator to ourselves and each other, busy-ness.
Remember the days at the grocery store when we weren't frantically looking for toilet paper? We would run into our neighbors. Exchange pleasantries. Perhaps embrace or shake hands. (Gasp!)
Our conversations would commonly include how busy we were. How we wish we could have more hours in the day. More sleep. More time for all those things we claimed to want to do. Now we have it. In spades. The Netflix shows we've wanted to binge are running out and we're lost.
How do we define who we are? How we are doing? For the first time, perhaps since the dawn of the digital age, we might have to answer those questions honestly and without a qualifier.
Breathe. This is good news. Let it go.
*Note: This blog speaks mainly to those staying in their homes during the Covid-19 pandemic. I am grateful to all those who are on the frontlines of this crisis, from our hospitals to our farms.
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