“I’ve had enough adventure for a while,” you say.
I laugh because I know what you mean. Because it hasn’t been the good kind of adventure for about a year now. Instead, it’s mostly boredom, ennui, feeling trapped — punctuated by the occasional nightmare that can still find us.
We worry about others all the time. About their safety (on all levels) and their emotional states.
We grieve those we have lost. And we support those who are grieving their own losses.
As always, the trouble is there is so much we can do. We have our little piece to do — and once that’s done, we’re powerless to stop the rest of it. Everyone has to do their part, and not everyone does. And we all suffer for it.
It’s hard enough to coordinate a broad effort when everyone’s on the same page. When lies and spin get involved, the powerful poison the well for their own reasons and then retire to their bunkers, leaving the rest of us to deal with the tainted water.
Look, it’s a lot.
It’s been a year in which a lot of the usual joys are either absent or muted (because they’re a little modified and strange — and accompanied by a pervasive weirdness). Meanwhile, the threats and stresses have multiplied.
There’s no getting around it. It’s been a tough year. One filled with the wrong kind of adventure. A chaos that still manages to be boring.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for the fact that we’re still here. Still together. Surviving. There’s not a day that goes by that I’m not knocked over by a huge wave of gratitude. For you. For my own life, my own chance to come out on the other side of this (hopefully).
I’ve been surviving on such gratitude for months. It’s what prevents me from being completely swallowed by the darkness. From giving up. Turning self-destructive.
“I’ve had enough adventure for a while,” you say.
“Me, too,” I reply.