We've Become Too Accustomed

We’ve Become Too Accustomed

By John R. Greenwood 

I seem to have lost something this week. I can’t muster up a post or a thought. The news from Boston, Texas, and Washington has taken over and placed my simple life far down the priority list. Work squeezed my sleep pattern and left me trying to determine whether my exhaustion was physical or mental. Everyone reading this probably feels the same way. I am being stretched in many directions and it makes going in the right one a challenge. For today I will think of those affected by all the insanity swirling around us. I will do my best to keep informed without being consumed like a fragile home in a midwest tornado. Even though we my be far removed from the current situations unfolding in Massachusetts and Texas they still hurt and disturb us. We want to help and ease the pain of our fellow Americans but most of us will simply watch in some state of disbelief. 

As I wrote the paragraph above the news coming out of Boston was focused on a tarp wrapped boat in the backyard of a home in Watertown, Ma. Soon the news that a suspect was in custody ended a week long nightmare. Crowds roared and sirens blared. Freedom had come to a pain ravaged neighborhood. I watched the news all day and in the end I find it hard to believe what I am seeing. I find it hard to keep my thoughts straight. I feel like we are on a runaway train and the faster it goes the harder it becomes to see life along the way. The tracks will level out as they always do. The train will coast to a stop. We will once again be able to step off onto the platform of life. Life will return to normal for most. It will never return to normal for many of the people from Boston and West Texas. It was a painful week. It was a strange day. The crazy American part of it is; I spent the majority of it installing a new bathroom vanity. We ended the day in an Italian restaurant. That’s what we Americans do. We cringe and cry alongside our suffering neighbors-- then we make dinner plans. We have become too accustomed...