A Storm is Coming …

I have always had two personality quirks. I am a regimented planner — I like to know what is going to happen, exactly what time, who is going to be there, what is the attire, etc. It’s just who I am. It makes me very reliable and also a pain in the ass. I accept that about myself.

My second quirk is a very keen sixth sense. I can read a room — the energy, the glances people give, the tone in an email, the body languages of those that are lying in almost Sherlock Holmes-style deduction. It has also made me a pain in the ass to cheating spouses or two-faced friends. There was a time that I would question this instinct, my gut or inner voice. I would always live to regret it. My mother would tell me, “your gut is God, listen to Him.”

My gut right now is in a knot.

From the first day of the lockdown I felt like Sarah Connor looking into a future no one else saw with dread. I watched as people went along as normally as they could with what was happening. Putting little “Stay Inside, Stay Safe” banners around their profile pictures, ending every email with the same “Stay Safe” sign off.

I, on-the-other-hand, broke my Keto diet to eat Lemonheads and wash them down with wine then buy a bullhorn to scream at people through my living room window sarcastically that had the “audacity” to be outside. I wasn’t “ok”. That was pretty clear. And, the amount of people that were mindlessly ok with it all freaked me out more. Every time they would tell me to “stay safe”, I would force a fake smile and in my head think, “thanks. I was planning on going to lick doorknobs in the hospital. You just saved me.”

My instincts told me a truth that I kept trying to share, “once they lock us up, we aren’t going to get out — not truly and not for a long time.” I was told I was nuts for thinking that. I mean, it could have been because I was screaming it half kicked in the ass from wine through a bullhorn off my back porch while blasting American Girl by Tom Petty … but, they still were saying I was wrong and quite apparently now … I was not.

My gut is now on fire.

I need a plan. I want a plan. In life and in work … everyone keeps trying to plan for some unknown future that doesn’t seem to even have a start date that doesn’t include the words, “well, let’s wait to see what happens after the election.” Do we get how messed up that is?

My mind keeps trying to process ways this election can go without the inevitable darkness that is going to follow. I can’t come up with a solution and I am so frustrated daily by that. It strains my mind. I keep playing out the different scenarios and the maze keeps dumping me at the same ending. Chaos.

People are pushed to the max, I mean to the MAX. We have been locked up, polarized, attacked, verbally abused and maligned. These mayors and governors have allowed these kids with no clue what they are asking for to roam the streets protesting, plotting and planning while the real adults are struggling to figure out how to keep their businesses and lives afloat. It is building a resentment that I don’t think people are truly understanding the magnitude of the anger they are creating. It’s a powder keg.

The media, that is the constant spoon stirring for ratings, is painfully oblivious or doesn’t care as to how close to the edge they are pushing this with people. I am seriously concerned we are one, tiny step away from the word these kids keep chanting, but have no idea what that will mean, the word I won’t say because I don’t want to write it into existence … I fear we are one misstep away from … “it”.

A storm is coming.

And, I am certain that again I will get called an alarmist for believing so. I sure hope I am wrong. For all of our sakes, I hope I am wrong. I want to be wrong. And, if I am … at least I will have extra toilet paper this time!

Until then, I will stare off into the not-so-distant future for America and pray the storm is gentle on us all.