It seems some of you have noticed I haven’t been writing lately. For those who were concerned, thank you for your nice notes but no I wasn’t sick, well physically anyway. For some reason I just stopped writing. I had lots of topics I wanted to address, but literally could not make myself sit down and do it. Instead I just checked out and opted to float for awhile.

I’ve decided it’s due to the stress of this crazy year. We in Utah started with a bang, In February Covid appeared on the horizon, and I watched in amazement as people in China donned face masks and refused to leave their homes. Hot on the heels of this disturbing development Utah experienced a 6.0 earthquake which caused major damage. Two days later, lockdown.

My place of employment, closed its doors and we were all assigned to work from home. Unfortunately, this did not compute. I work in a library, I help people find books. I check books in and out, I pull holds off the shelves. This is not a job one can do from home. Luckily my employers were flexible. We were given other tasks to do and were still able to keep our jobs, for which I am forever grateful, but it wasn’t long before I really missed my job.

In the meantime, our society cracked open with the murder of George Floyd. Riots broke out and we watched in horror as people fought in the streets, occupied public areas and vandalized stores, all in the name of the racial equality.

Then we were back to natural disasters. California held it’s annual fire storm, but this year it was so much worse. At one point it seemed there’d be nothing left to burn if the fires continued to rage. Other states jumped on the bandwagon and in Oregon my poor mother was evacuated from her home as flames licked the edges of her neighborhood.

The icing on the cake has been the appalling and cringe-worthy presidential election. The initial presidential debate left me stunned and sick to my stomach. Is this what we’ve become? Bullies pushing and shouting in the schoolyard? What happened to the professionalism, dignity and honesty that supposedly goes with the office of President of the United States?

I tried to unplug from the daily chaos that was the presidential race but it wasn’t always possible. I dreaded reading about the topic, yet kept getting sucked in. I felt like someone who’d stumbled upon a grisly auto accident and couldn’t make myself look away. When I realized that my heart would start to race whenever I read the latest election news, I finally got a grip and quit checking my google feed.

So now that it’s finally over, its really not. There are too many casualties, one of those being my confidence in my country’s democratic system. Seriously, can we all just calm down? If your side lost, try to move on. If your side won, be considerate of other’s disappointment.

While nobody likes a sore loser, there is much to be said for being a gracious winner. I read about someone driving a truck around Washington DC with a large picture of Donald Trump painted on the side, along with the words Loser. Badly done winners. I distance myself from people who gloat.

So how do we get back to ourselves? Somehow we need to to start acting like adults and not hormonal teenagers run amuck. We need to get back to America, the beacon on the hill. Lets rise up and shake hands and let go of our fury. 2020 is waning and a new year is almost upon us.

Lets do it better . . . I want to be able to write again

Have you been overwhelmed by 2020? What are you doing to keep your spirits up?.