Yuck!

Last week I wrote this.
It was an effort to sort out why I was feeling the way I was.
Unsettled. Restless. Tired.
Granted, it was gray and chilly here in Vermont when I wrote what I did and I was more than ready for some sunshine and warmer temperatures. But it was a friend’s comment that helped me to better understand what was going on inside me. She responded to what I wrote by saying how hard it was for her to “get back to normal.”
Thinking about what she said helped me to understand.

It may not feel very good to us but, feeling unsettled, restless, tired, not normal, and even angry and disappointed and fearful may be exactly what we are supposed to be feeling given the craziness of the world in which we live.
The war in Ukraine.
The extreme dysfunction and unraveling of our political system.
The vitriol of school board meetings and town meetings
And the verbal stones neighbors are hurling at each other.
Maybe craziness is feeling normal in the midst of all that and more.
So, yuck!

So, then what?
For me, at least, it is one of those times to name and to be keenly aware of what I am feeling and why I am feeling what I do, and then to deliberately put into practice those values which I try to build my life around.
To say Thank you out loud even if I don’t feel thankful at that moment.
To be kind to the people around me when what I really want to do is to scream or to hide.
To do something – for me it is delivering Meals on Wheels and paying attention to the people to whom I hand a meal, and helping to organize a Midnight Run for youth and adults from the small church I attend here in Vermont…something to help nudge the world in the direction I think it needs to go. 

So, what do you think?
While it may not feel very  good, maybe this is not the time to feel normal.