All the feelings...

I'm feeling all the feelings today. Frustration, anxiety, anger, hope, trust, sadness. All of it. This Pandemic. Let's talk about it. On one hand I'm tired and frustrated and I want life to just be normal. I want people to quit being so STUPID. I can not fathom how some people just can't see logic and reason. It blows my mind. Screaming about their freedoms when all they are being asked to do is put on a mask to help protect other people. They yell and scream that it's fake. Or only old people get it. So. Much. Stupid. But. And it's a big one...a lot of these people are people we know. They are usually good decent people. I'm not sure what has driven them to be this way right now and I hope that some day we can all come back together and be friends again.

I 100% hope this illness ends up being a blip in our lives. We've already lost so many people though. As of today it is around 143,000. And people don't seem to care. I just don't understand that. They always have some ready excuse to why those deaths aren't a big deal or don't count. I don't understand that kind of selfishness. I just can't.

And still, I am frustrated as well. I want life back. I want vacations back and maskless shopping days and grabbing lunch in a restaurant. I want horse lessons and summer camp and cutting shows. However, let me remember the reason we aren't doing those things. See, we were SICK in March. Sick to the point I almost took Jamie to the ER. However, that was the beginning of hospitalizations. If you went in, you likely weren't coming out. There were no tests. You couldn't get tested in WV unless you were critical in he ICU. If history remembers that differently then history is wrong. The doctor told him to isolate. The rest of us ran fevers, could barely get out of bed or function. Jamie couldn't walk from the couch to the kitchen. And 4 months later we are waiting on a CT scan of his lung. It's damaged. Damage consistent with COVID-19. He still has trouble catching his breath. He still gets so tired. So we are being proactive to protect ourselves from further chance of exposure. We'll never know if we had the virus. Either way the damage was done and he'll be very susceptible to a more sever case should he contract it (again?).

I have hope in the future that this will pass and we will hopefully learn from our many mistakes. I'm so thankful to have my little place on the hill surrounded by my woods and meadows. I'm thankful we hadn't yet sent our son out into the world and he can take time to really decide what he wants to do. I'm thankful we have horses and fields. Barn full of hay and feed and freezers full of local beef and pork. I have room to garden (badly) and wildflowers and natural defenses to intruders. We have loving, loyal and protective dogs, personal protection, covered porches for thunderstorm watching and each other.

Some days get very hard but we have found that we are much more resilient than we ever thought. Still, it's a scary time. There are still many days when I think longingly about life being normal, jobs being secure and everything moving along as it should. Some days I just look around and think, How is this even real life? How is this happening?

Good questions...