I Can Do This

 

The last eighteen months have been something many of us have not experienced before. It has been a challenge to survive. It has been life changing. It has taught us a lot, some positive and some not so positive. In some cases, it has left us reeling.

Not only that, its not over yet. If someone had told me in March of 2020 that I would be sitting here, eighteen months later, writing about this, I truly would have been mortified. At the time, most of us thought that in a month, maybe two and at the most three, we would be done with the virus. Clearly that was not to be. We continue the battle.

Add to the regular challenge of working from home, masking up to go out, not being able to get together with friends or families, we now have a major divide happening in whether to get vaccinated or not. There are demonstrations and protests. Social media is alive and well in presenting the ideas and beliefs of each individual. Google has even made some people smarter than doctors and scientists. Its true. I saw it on Facebook.

Added to this is the noise of the recent election. And honestly most of it was noise and nothing but noise. As it turns out it accomplished little at best. Uppermost on many minds was whether politicians running for office were vaccinated or not. Many were loathe to admit it. Political platforms were built on it.

I admit it. I am vaccinated. Interesting. That wasn’t at all hard to admit. Then again I am not looking for votes. Not only that I can tell you all about my side effects. I am convinced that getting vaccinated improved my golf game and I did the research. Okay, I just made that up. But hear me out. Since my second vaccination I have golfed better than at any point in my life. I have come to realize that the vaccine has done something magical to my internal GPS. I am hitting the ball better and closer to my targets. In fact, I even had a hole in one. Coincidental? I think not. Fight me.

My apologies. I digress. Seriously the pandemic has left us all weary. We have tried to remain strong, but it really is getting us down. I recently spoke to an elderly lady who was dealing with other issues aside from the pandemic. I told her how I admired the strength she had. She looked at me with weary eyes and suggested she was so tired of being strong.

I suppose that echoes many of our own thoughts. We are getting tired of being strong. I have said before, if we knew of an exact date of when this would be over, life would be easier. We would be working towards that date, knowing it was going to end. But like other experiences we don’t know when it will be over. It’s a big unknown and unknowns can have the ability to drag us down.

So let me just simply leave you with a poem I have shared before. It remains one of my favorites. It was written by John Greenleaf Whittier. Whittier was an advocate for the abolition of slavery in the 1800’s. He experienced his own journey with mental illness. The poem encourages me as I hope it will you. Make it a good one.

Never Quit

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
 
Success is failure turned inside out –
The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It might be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit –
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.