On Being Nervous

I’ll admit it right here: I’m nervous. Scared. Worried to death. Nervous as a long-tail cat in a room full of rockin’ chairs…

I dropped my kid off three weeks ago, at a university.

Since then, there’s been an anti-mask protest, a violent clash between Black Lives Matter protesters and white supremacists just two blocks from her school, of course the ongoing, never-ending pandemic, the ongoing, never-ending political mess, the looming recession, the threat of a North Korean seaborne nuclear missile launch system that could hit the Pacific Northwest, and now these damned fires. She sends us pictures of deep orange noontime skies, and foggy streetlights, except that the fog is red.

It’s too much! Too much. It’s way in over its own head, whatever that means. I know it’s way, way over mine.

But, then she sends us a picture of her first Latin quiz: 100%. In spite of all of that crazy stuff, she aced her first quiz. And she’s in her dorm room right now, red sunlight streaming through her windows, studying for her first anatomy quiz.

She’s studying because she wants to do well, because she’s driven to make something of herself. She’s putting aside the riots, and the smoke, and the pandemic, and dealing with what needs to be done.

I can’t change the politics or the pandemic, the fires or the North Koreans.

All I can do is put my head down and focus on what needs to be done.

Just like my kid.

Okay, that and vote!