Running on (running on empty)
Running on (running blind)
Running on (running into the sun)
But I’m running behind
Lyrics / Jackson Browne
Well I’m a-runnin’ down the road try’n to loosen my load
Jackson Browne /The Eagles
(vector stock)
Everyone who is tired, raise your hand.
Everyone who is stressed, raise your hand.
Everyone who feels as if they are running on empty, raise your hand.
Okay now…put down all your hands.
You are not alone…
Obviously, we know this from all the raised hands…
There is comfort in not being alone.
Unfortunately, however, there are many of us right now who are
alone because of the “lockdown” while there are many of us
locked down with a passel load of family.
So…we agree that many of us are physically tired or emotionally tired, or simply both.
Well, I had to venture back out yesterday into the world of contagion to gather food.
Remember, my hunter /gathering senses have kicked into overdrive during this madness…
yet I still can’t seem to snag any of that elusive toilet paper…but I digress.
So as I made my way through the grocery store as quickly as possible,
holding my breath when passing anyone closer than 6 feet,
the fellow stocking the cheeses was loudly lamenting to a co-worker,
who by the way was standing right next to him and not the required 6 feet,
that he was sick and tired…
His voice was rising as he hit the word tired.
He loudly announced that he oh so needed a vacation but…. there was now nowhere to go.
So naturally, I chimed-in in agreement.
We are indeed all tired.
And we all desperately need a vacation…
and no, there is nowhere to go!
So there you go.
I could hear him still bemoaning as I rounded down the flour and sugar aisle.
All of which are still sparse.
The thought of him flipping out while stocking cheese did cross my mind.
As I probably would have joined in by grabbing more than the allotted two packs
while making a mad dash to the exit.
The police would have probably persued the crazy woman with more than her two packs
of cheese.
Life is now oh so odd is it not?
And it seems to just keep getting odder by the hour.
There were more masks worn on emotionless faces at the store,
yet I noted that none of the employees wore masks or gloves…
I don’t have a mask—
However my cousin did send me the funniest video of a woman making her own mask from a pair of
her husband’s briefs…I tried it…
My husband didn’t seem to like it.
(rest assured, I had just taken them from the dryer)
I did think it probably was better material for a mask vs the homemade cotton masks.
But for now, I’ll forego my homemade mask.
So yes, I worry.
I’m a mother…we worry.
I worry about us, our American family, throughout this nuttiness.
We were bad off enough before this pandemic what with all our PC mania,
our progressive left thinking, our socialism wannabees..
And so I took heart while reading the following by Newt Gingrich–
the sound of wisdom found during the storm:
Beyond the Crisis: We Will Endure and Prevail
According to the pandemic experts, we are in the heart of the crisis.
The next few weeks will see a substantial increase in American deaths even as the virus
begins to be isolated and lose momentum.
For many families, there will be anguish and a deep sense of loss.
For communities, there will be a sense of grief as the virus takes its human toll.
Americans have suffered grievous loss before.
The surgeon general cited Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
He could have added the battles of Antietam and Gettysburg,
the cost of the Normandy campaign,
and the Army and Marine losses to the Chinese Communist offensive in Korea
in the winter of 1950 to 1951.
Americans have suffered losses going all the way back to
Gen. George Washington’s long, painful winter at Valley Forge during the American Revolution.
And after each cycle of loss, there has been a rebirth of the American spirit,
determination to build a better future,
and deep belief that we Americans cannot be defeated or conquered.
Instead, we have a compulsion to work toward a bigger, better,
more fulfilling life for our children and grandchildren.
The great novelist William Faulkner captured this spirit in his 1950
Nobel Prize acceptance speech when he said:
“I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is
immortal simply because he will still endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom
has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red
and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound:
that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.
“I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure:
he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures
has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable
of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things.
It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart,
by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion
and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past.
The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man,
it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.”
We must once again call upon this American tradition of overcoming challenges.
A few weeks ago, we had the strongest economy in American history.
A few months from now we can have an even stronger economy.
As the entire world gears up after the pandemic,
there will be a real hunger for American medical breakthroughs,
American health technology, and all the capabilities of the
American system to respond to market opportunities.
Americans should be encouraged right now to start thinking about the next four or five years.
What do you want to be doing? What do you want to achieve with your life?
What have you learned from this experience that can lead to a more productive and fruitful life?
We need to remember the Declaration of Independence’s promise that we are endowed
by our Creator with certain inalienable rights including life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This still applies to every one of us.
So, as you spend these last few weeks of sheltering in place,
take stock of what pursuing happiness means to you and the people you love.
Start making plans for how you and yours are going to pursue happiness the minute we defeat the virus.
Remember President Ronald Reagan’s favorite line,
“you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
That is the optimistic, buoyant,
happy way we should approach the world after we have defeated the virus
(and we will defeat it decisively).
We will get beyond the crisis, and we will be bigger and better than ever.
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