So Tired

The delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday, our beloved five-year-old granddaughter, has completed two weeks of kindergarten and is exhausted. When the bus lets her off, she trudges up the driveway, her backpack nearly as big as she is, still wearing the unicorn mask she carefully puts on each morning. Lizzie hasn’t regularly napped for months, but nearly every day of the new school year, she’s curled up and fallen asleep before supper. This week, she didn’t even make it home, falling asleep on the school bus. She’s loving school, but it’s wiping her out.

 

I’m right there with you, Lizzie. I seldom nap, but a level of exhaustion encircles me in these days that doesn’t seem commensurate with my daily activity, even when I’m chasing your baby brother and baby cousin. I’m loving life, but it’s wiping me out!

 

Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber explains in her August 30 prayer: “We don’t know how to feel less tired. We don’t know how to vanquish our own fears. . . We don’t know how to live through a global pandemic an anti-black violence and wildfires and hurricanes and the fact that Chadwick Boseman just died. We don’t know how to sustain the effort it takes to not completely freak out, and the effort it takes to keep from freaking out is one of the things that is making us so tired.” 

 

So what do we do? The fixer that resides in me by nature and that was nurtured through years of Salvation Army work wants to go right to the solution. Go to bed at the same time each night. Eat nutritious foods. Exercise more. Get outside every day. Don’t watch a scary movie before bedtime. Drink plenty of water. 

 

But here’s the thing. If I’m in the midst of a good book, I want to keep reading. The comfort foods of my childhood keep calling my name. I don’t have the energy to exercise. I’ve been outside this summer, but winter is just around the corner – so much for fresh air. I don’t watch scary movies. And if I drink plenty of water . . . well, those of a certain age know what that means.

 

Don’t get me wrong. These techniques are helpful practices for healthy living, and I’ve often suggested the very same prescription. But this weariness of the summer of 2020 goes beyond a daily quota of jumping jacks or avoidance of the bad dreams inspired by Freddy Krueger.

 

It’s tempting to downplay our own struggles when we compare our lot with other periods of history. We think about our immigrant ancestors, arriving penniless in the new world, or worse, bound on slave ships. Our experience pales when lined up against wartime, where the depths of physical deprivation and the cost of living under a cloud of fear every day are overwhelming. But still, the weariness of body and soul in the summer of 2020 is real and our feelings are valid.

 

As parents and grandparents, we are anxious as our little ones return to school – or don’t return to school. Work is scarce, the cupboards are empty and the rent is due. The threat of the virus permeates our masks, and we cringe from human touch if offered by a stranger. The struggle is real.

 

So what do we do? Like people have done for centuries, we embrace the reality of our situation without self-judgment. I turn again to the wise words of writer Connie Schultz: “Weariness is not an issue of character, nor is it a sign of weakness.” 

 

Bu we also can be reminded of who we are. Bolz-Weber’s prayer concludes: “Remind us of our own souls. Remind us that there is an essential, holy, unhurtable part of ourselves that never tires, that does not know fear, that is unaffected by other people, that cannot be irritated, that has nothing to achieve.” Christopher Robin assures his friend Winnie the Pooh, “You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” 

 

While you’re masking up, backing up and washing up, remember to breathe deeply. And, like Lizzie and Pooh, try a smallish nap or two. We will get through this.