It can be so hard to know what the correct way to think is. Opinions are everywhere, and if you say one thing out of turn (according to somebody else), suddenly you’re either an extreme leftist or an extreme rightist and you’re labelled before you even had time to think about what it all means anyway.
I found that this level of pondering and labelling increased while being in isolation. People had so little to do that time on social media just skyrocketed (so did online shopping, as the Jeff Bezos of the world found out how a worldwide catastrophe can be a turned into a personal goldmine; so much gain over so much pain makes me feel a little queasy).
It felt like being away on a bad COVID vacation, and I was constantly hearing Sam Roberts’ “Where Have All the Good People Gone?” playing in my head, because every time I listened to the news or tuned into late-night television all I saw was that this world that I had been enjoying and exploring was quickly going to hell in a handbasket.
We’ve had plenty of crises before, and we’ve heard of the hard times and the results and backlashes in all the history books, and studied them to be able to know what to do when crisis took over again. There is always a little nagging thought in the back of our minds that it won’t happen to us in this lifetime, though.
But here we are in the thick of it. Pandemics, politics, climate emergency, not to mention the daily darkness we have in our own backyards; our government can’t even provide clean drinking water to those who were here first. It can all feel terribly overwhelming.
Yet the doors are opening again, because each time I step back onto campus or make eye contact with another human being I get that surge of hope that flows through me; maybe we are not all that different. Maybe we are all feeling bewildered and befuddled, trying to grasp some sanity and strength while we dash off into our unpredictable worlds. The only thing I know is that now the doors are opened again and I can get my coffee and sit in a classroom; I hope people can tell that under the mask covering my face I am grateful to be here, and I am smiling.