Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

I think there’s a song with this name. I couldn’t tell you for sure, and I certainly couldn’t hum few bars. But this phrase creeps into my mind again and again this year.

When I wake in the morning, my first thoughts are anchoring, as I establish what day it is and what, if any, commitments I have. I often stumble as the days seem to run together. What day is it, anyway? Sometimes I get it wrong and it takes a while for me to figure it out.

With fewer commitments and opportunities to take me out of the house, one would think I’d be on top of things. Instead, I often feel overwhelmed. I hunger for routine; without it I flounder. Day after day of uncertainty does not contribute positively to my mental health.

Ironically, I’ve given more thought to my mental health (or lack thereof) this year than I have for ages, and yet the health part of it remains elusive. I know I am not alone in this fog and, in that, I find a measure of comfort. There are companions in this darkness.

I recoil from pat answers that clang like cymbals and find foreign those who have all the right answers. I find comfort with kindreds who, like me, have far more questions. Companions, as I said, in the darkness that descended this year.

And so another day begins and I wish I could stop writing about the pandemic and the fog and the floundering, but I can’t seem to. So I drop anchor.

Today is Thursday, the third of December in the first week of Advent in the thirty-eighth week since the pandemic was declared. Does anybody really know what time it is?