Gotta Turn the Channel

 Every day the night gets a little longer and a little darker.  Every day I hear about more of my fellow Americans dying from a deadly disease.  Just today, a friend lost an ex - 35 and healthy.  She had a heart attack from the strain of the symptoms on her body, lost blood flow and they had to amputate her leg.  She didn't make it anyway.  I'm to the point where I can't watch the news any more because I hear about cases going up, people continuing to be stupid and my heart starts to palpitate and I'm afraid.  Yes, I'm afraid that I will get it but even worse, that my children, my husband or my mother will. I just want to see the other side of this nightmare with all the people I love still hear but I don't know how that happens or what that looks like.  How long can life go on like this?  

I worry for friends who live alone.  I'm lucky.  At least I have my family and they are so important and so precious to me. I get to spend every day with the people who matter most, but I worry for others who are isolated and aren't as lucky as me.  I barely make it through the day, to be honest.  How are they making it? I use to wonder how a person could go to the Annapolis bridge and jump but some days seem so dark that it's hard to see the light.

This time of year is really hard for me anyway, because it's my Dad's birthday.  He was born on December 21st - the longest night of every year - the Winter Solstice. I keep waiting for the day, because I know what we really celebrate is the rebirth of the Light.  I'm trying to just hold on and be happy that I'm hear - safe with my family.  But my oldest sees her boyfriend, and while I'm so glad for her that she has someone to love, I'm also scared out of my mind every time she sneezes. Or coughs....The fear is nearly intolerable.

Even when I go places, the anxiety takes a hold.  People get to close and I feel like the walls are closing in.  My heart starts to pound and I feel like I can't breath.  I worry about what I would do if something terrible actually happened to someone I love.  I worry that I wouldn't be strong enough to help them, that I would let them down. That I wouldn't be there when they needed me the most.  I guess I'm just asking for strength and most of all for protection for my beautiful girls.  They have so much to offer the world and they are so young.  I just want to see them on the other side of this - safe, happy and healthy.

I see a day - sometime in the future where we are all around the Christmas tree again, even my Mom and Bill.  Where we can go to the BSO and watch my youngest play her clarinet without masks on our faces.  Where I can workout without fear of the person next to me.  Where I can hug my littles and be at school with them.   I hope that time is coming.  Until then, I keep my head down, my mask on, put one foot in front of the other and pray and hope.... Because that's all I can do.  Helplessness is the worst feeling of all.