The Shellshocked

 It is impossible for me not to notice the degree of disconnection people are experiencing including me. The other day, a colleague at work reported that she had tested positive for COVID-19 after I'd been in a meeting with them the previous day. Immediately I thought about my wife and our friends. Did I make them ill? I tested myself twice in the last 48 hours and learned I was not infected. But was I relieved? I guess I feel a sense of that, but happier that people I care for are okay--at least for now. 

There is a lot going on to make you feel that it is just a matter of time before the next shoe drops. That, despite all evidence that things are no more out of hand than in any other time of history, it just feels different, you know what I mean? It seems like there is something in the undercurrent that makes it hard to enjoy life, almost like you have no right to enjoy it. It may be because I'm in my sixties and have seen and experienced a lot of enjoyment in my life and I'm somehow jaded, but I don't think it is just me.

I imagine we are living like people in Hiroshima or Nagasaki when the atomic bombs went off or the people in New York after the airplanes hit the Twin Towers. Everything changed. Everyone was shellshocked. A kind of disassociation that our bodies do when our brains can't quite comprehend the immensity of the moment. And the shock doesn't wear off when it is being reinforced by the news of the world, by decisions being made for the masses while each of us is truly wondering what the hell is going on around us.

In three minutes give or take, I will go for a walk. I do more walking these days to try to keep one foot moving in front of the other. At the same time, I don't fight the feeling. The soft pitter-patter of dread that is flowing through me as I try to tamp it down with hubris or humor or whatever I can get my hands on or wrap my mind around, is ever-present. Still, I will take it on and beat it down. I have to, I cannot imagine living the rest of my life in submission to it.