By Quayl Rewinski
Fear, what is it? How does it make us feel? How do those feelings of fear affect our lives, our choices, our livelihoods, our mental and physical well-being? I’m sure we will all have different thoughts about fear and what it does to us. If we could turn off fear for a moment how would things look?
I am by no means an expert or a doctor, and I hold no credentials whatsoever. My only intention here is to voice what I feel. I’m not here to change your mind or tell you what to do. I am writing to share, to continue a dialog that has already been started. As I sit back, watch and observe people and their behaviors, I am constantly baffled by what I see and hear. I hear the slogan “we are all in this together” and then I hear how people from away are rudely being told to go home because their license plate does not say Vermont. Why are we behaving this way? Aren’t we in this together? If we truly are in this together than the color of a license plate shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter if people are from away, they are still people just like the rest of us, they have feelings too! But did fear just take over? The fear that …what? Are we afraid of death? Dying? Many of us are! We are scared, that can be okay. What I question is our behavior because we are scared. Does this give us the right to lash out to be rude? Being in this together is kind of like a marriage through the good times, the bad, through sickness and in health.
We joke about the saying “there are two things you can count on, death and taxes.” In times like this I hesitate to bring this to the forefront as for many of us this is not a joking matter. For many of us it’s real. Fear is real, fear evokes feelings that are real. But let’s not mistake fear for facts. Let’s not judge other’s feelings or fear. Death and dying can be a scary thing to think about or experience. COVID-19 has brought that to the forefront of our lives. It leaves many of us questioning so many things. Are we doing the right thing? Am I ready to die? What will I sacrifice to feel safe? Or be safe? All very important life questions we ask ourselves. We all want a guarantee that we are “doing the right thing.” We want a promise that if we do the right thing, it will “save” us. But we don’t get that even though we try our damndest! We still don’t get an expiration date. It’s all a crapshoot! It sucks! You can eat well, get the right amount of exercise, live a stress-free life and still die of natural causes or get hit by a bus.
We can all argue and debate about who or what we think is right or wrong, but the fact is we just don’t know. We don’t get to control when we go or how we go. All we have is this moment. So whether you look at the glass as half empty or half full, you are right! What you do have control over is how you look at it. What you do have control over is how you behave and how you treat others. I’m fully aware that I could die tomorrow for choices I have made today. I do my best to respect others and my hope is that they do the same toward me. I hope not to be judged by the color of my skin, my sex, the color of my license plate, whether I wear a mask or not, if I’m a vegetarian, carnivore or what I had for lunch, and I will do the same in return.
Quayl Rewinski lives in Warren.
