Are you dealing with anxiety? I am.
With all the wacky things going on right now some days I feel like a chicken running around with its head cut off. And those are my good days. Basically, I am the opposite of zen.
I’m a Little Bit Anxious
At this moment, we are dealing with quite a lot. First, forest fires are raging on the West Coast and here in Boulder County. Second, Covid19.
Finally, and most anxiety-provoking for me, a strange election unfolds that has those in authority championing old forms of voter suppression in ultra-creative new ways.
What Are You Doing?
Now and then I stop and say to myself, “2020 what are you doing?!” It’s all just a bit much. But deep down I am mostly worried that these are the good times and that things could get much worse.
Colorado Forest Fires
So, let us begin. As I write this three forest fires are raging around us, two of them within eight miles of us here in Boulder County. The air quality is terrible and it’s too smoky to go outside.
Our friend snapped this photo of the wildfire from his home in Boulder County.
On top of that, it smells like a plastic factory with mothballs in it burned down. Talk about feeling trapped during quarantine. My daily walks outside that sparked great joy are over for now.
But I really can’t complain about being inside my home when so many here in Boulder County have lost their homes and can’t do the same because their dwellings have burnt to the ground.
This makes me more sad and anxious than words can describe.
Covid19
When 2020 began I did not understand certain concepts that were to become key this year. Covid19? Quarantine baking? Fomite transmission? Mask-wearing? People arguing over mask-wearing? These ideas were foreign to me. I only wish they still were.
It all quickly became personal in March when we had to rush home a family member traveling in Europe. In April, we Lost a Loved One to COVID and then had to figure out how to grieve during the pandemic. The only word to describe this is “surreal.”
Now we must multiply our own grief times 223,547 families. That is how many people have died of this terrible disease here in the US. It’s hard not to be in constant COVerwhelm. The devastation wrought by this national disaster makes my own MS Diagnosis look like a cakewalk.
Still, the pandemic rages on and we are told not to fear it. What are we supposed to do? Shut Up and Bake?
In essence, we leave behind the first wave of Covid19 without a coherent national strategy, as we move into the cold weather and the impending, larger second wave.
