Ragged

OK, let me start here before I address the title: Monica & I are fine. We have our health, we’ve gotten good news recently regarding the bottom line financially and a break to celebrate an anniversary with my family is just a month away.

The stress of three months of constant crises in the news business kicked my ass last week. For all of my success in that role, it’s still the most stressful part of my career for multiple reasons. Add in the utter mess that last week was–the George Floyd aftermath, the President’s trek across Lafayette Park plus coronavirus still at work across the country–and I was just fried. I haven’t felt burned out for a while, but by the time we got to last Thursday, I was there.

I should’ve been able to read that I was headed that way, given the Lafayette Park incident that Monday. Everything surrounding that event put fear in my heart that I hadn’t felt since just after 9/11. The political ramifications of the situation made me anxious and I’m going to leave it at that. I just don’t recall ever feeling that way about something our government was doing, but that night I reached that point.

Over a stretch of the past few weeks, I’ve shared some historians’ viewpoints on the upheaval we’re seeing in our country as we head towards an election season unlike anything we’ve seen. Coronavirus is a wild card for everything, but much of what’s being going on carries echoes of 1968. Riots over police treatment of people. A presidential election between an unpopular candidate and one seen as a “default” for their party. “Law and order” being used as a campaign tactic by the Republican candidate. Unhappy folks to the left of the Democratic candidate trying to push through change and being upset that their party isn’t moving fast enough to the left for their liking.

The only thing missing is an unpopular war–though maybe our “war” against coronavirus counts…

It’s going to be a long five months in the news biz, isn’t it?

God, grant me the serenity to keep myself from freaking out.