Sacrificing Sanity

When an opinion columnist at the New York Times asked readers to share the status of their mental health with him in April, a few weeks into quarantine, he received more than 5,000 replies. While many said they were “hanging in there,” the rest of the responses were more like a “river of woe and agony.”

All over the country, people who were at first happy to have a break in their busy lives, angling for bulk toilet paper online, are by this time frustrated, bored, and lonely. They are eating more, sleeping more, and generally range from lethargic to depressed. As one reader wrote, “There is no way to distract yourself from your unhappiness now. Indeed, we are hogtied to our unhappiness.”

The media has worked overtime to scare everyone out of their pants. And while we all have to take precautions, there is no reason to frighten everyone. For a while I was washing my hands so often they were raw, a bottle of Clorox hung from my belt, and anyone who didn’t move fast enough was disinfected as a matter of course.

Meanwhile, our leaders have fought the dreaded virus with a cure that is bankrupting families everywhere with business closures and lost wages. So not only have we lost people we love, we have the added thrill of losing our financial foundations as our 401Ks tumble in value. If you’re over 60, you’ve probably figured out you better just stay in bed.

Jim and I have attended a virtual funeral, daily Zoom meetings, and FaceTime get-togethers with family. But generally, we just miss our lives. Virtual is easy, but it isn’t the same. With a loss of sanity circling, I ordered a book called “Power Words,” by Joyce Meyer. Here’s one of the nuggets I found in its pages: 2 Timothy, 1:7: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” The Sound Mind part is what I’m excited about.

When everything is rolling along, focus is easy. The day is not wide open. It is planned. This loosey-goosey, is-there-anything-new-on-Netflix, watch-Sunday-service-in-your-PJs stuff is making me dull as a stump. The structure is gone and we are indeed hogtied to our unhappiness—or at least to our boredom and our itch to get things going again. (I resisted putting the word “going” in caps, but I really wanted to do that.)

Anyway, for now, I am claiming a sound mind and am looking forward to our new May 15th quarantine release date. In the army they say you’re “short” when you have less time left in your period of service than you have already served. (I learned this when Jim was defending Camp Atterbury on weekends as a U.S. Army reservist a hundred years ago.) So, here’s the thing: We are all “short” now. Thank You, Jesus!

See you somewhere in person, soon…I hope,
Nancy