Fourth Monday Susan Speaks

What can I say?

By Susan C. Price

A friend told me recently that he has "just been overwhelmed lately....my capacity to deal with the really usual stuff has diminished." I asked him whether he was okay, what was up. He said:

Nothing I can specifically identify. I think I'm just tired. Maybe the daily routine is getting a bit old, although I still enjoy ticking things off my to-do list. Maybe it's the burden of what's happening to mountaintops from coal mining, what's happening to whales and other sea creatures from Naval testing and ocean oil wells, birds who are losing their habitat, people being slaughtered by militant groups, individuals being raped and murdered in the very county I live in....All of this really is getting to me, and I've frankly been depressed over it. That's probably what has been draining me and leaving me less capable than usual to do even the stuff I like. Does this make sense? And maybe it's complicated by the thought: how can I just go about life as usual when so many creatures and people are being treated so unjustly and terribly?

    What could I say? I get it, yup, I do.
    I count getting the one to two loads of laundry I do each week as SOMETHING DONE!
    And I read the daily paper, Boko Haram...I bear witness, it's all I do. I just finished a two-volume (over 1800 pages total) sci - fi "opera" Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained... or some such, by Peter Hamilton, even tho his fictional humans get involved in real cool things like re-lifing and "e-butlers" (like Google Glass only just IN your vision, no glasses needed) and OC tattoos that give you additional powers....
    But real humans still suck and they and other creatures try to win everything....<sigh>
    I don't see much improvement. I would apologize to my granddaughter for wasting trees/paper, water...etc., but I'm too busy explaining the world to her, and telling her, "No, I wont turn the clothes you stripped off and turned inside-out back so you can put them on again. YOU changed clothes...YOU DO THE WORK." She looks at me in perplexed wonder. Someone said no to me???
    We didn't enable all the sad stuff, and we didn't fix a whole lot of it, but, as my brother says, we planted a tree, we raised a healthy, reasonably happy child (well, I didn't do that), and we didn't cause more trouble.
    That may be all there is. And what is...is short.
    So we need to be as happy as we can, help what's right in front of us, take care of the dishes, the spouse, the puppy...and hug...hard and often.
    That seems to be about all most of us can be responsible for. And notice the beautiful day.
    ONE foot in front of the other, and never stop stopping to notice the flowers and the sky. (Ours is glorious today!!! – there are two small groups of baby ducks in the large pond of the large business park a few blocks away...as usual in April... Hope for tomorrow... Uh...I don't know why ducks per se are hopeful? At least, I don't eat them, and their poop is prodigious.)
    That's all I got.

Copyright © 2015 by Susan C. Price