Coronavirus diary: Control

The biggest cause of anxiety for me during the pandemic and accompanying social upheaval has been to grapple, once again, with how much of my life - and the life of my child - really isn't under my control.

I say once again, because nine years ago at this time I was in bad state. I'd lost my job a year before and was barely scraping together an income freelancing. Then I ended up with a bout of diverticulitis that killed me and necessitated three surgeries that caused incredible pain, and a lengthier-than-expected recovery. The results broke me, physically, and nearly did so mentally. I only got by thanks to the suport of my wife and family.

So I know that things can go awry, despite your best efforts. I know that we don't always get happy endings. This sometimes puts me at odds with my dad, an incorrigible optimist -- and that optimism has served him extremely well -- but I believe that happy endings are as much about luck as anything. You can do the right thing, but stuff (the country you're born in, a random mutation in your DNA, the weather, some other driver's bad decision) will get in the way. The control we think we exercise over our own lives is mostly an illusion that can be shattered in an instant. Or, as seems to currently be the case, over weeks and months that all bleed together.

The disaster that is 2020 has brought that home, once again.

I don't know that I (or we, collectively) are going to get a happy ending. I frequently suspect not. But as I've noted, I'm given to apocalyptic thinking. I worry that I'm going to die soon of COVID. Or if not, I'll live but die someday broke and miserable, unable to provide for my wife or son. Or that my son will live a life on the margins, simply trying to survive in a world beset with financial depression, pandemics and climate change. Worse: I have no idea how to prepare him for that.

I can do what I can do. And I will. But I can't control what ultimately happens.

It's a cliche to resort to the Serenity Prayer during moments like these. (It's also longer and Jesus-ier than what usually gets quoted.)  And it feels selfish, hypocritical to pray right now, when so often I ... don't. "God, I know we don't talk often, but I need something from you." But there is wisdom there, nonetheless:

God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time,
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;
taking, as Jesus did,
this sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it.

There's even more! But this approach is all that gives me peace right now. And maybe a little hope.