Hi Everyone.  My name is Karen Wilkerson, and if I haven’t met you, I am Pastor Bryan’s wife.

I’m coming to you from my Zoom Room- where I hold my classes for the preschool special needs students I teach in Winchester.  Hence, all the paper flowers over my head to make it look a little more appealing for young learners.

Speaking of learning, I’ve been thinking about all the new terms we’ve learned in the past few months- Covid-19, coronavirus, physical and social distancing.  Words we didn’t know or use just 2 months ago. I heard a new phrase recently that piqued my interest.  A phrase that describes how we are all feeling but didn’t have a pithy way of saying it.  What’s the phrase?  Quarantine fatigue.

What is a simpler way of saying Quarantine fatigue?  It simply means we are all sick and tired of everything after 8 weeks of being inside and being apart. We’ve hit a wall, we are at the end of our rope.   We’re tired of wearing masks, of cooking for ourselves, of scrounging for toilet paper.  For those of you with children, I’m sure you’re sick and tired of distance learning. (If I can let you in on a little secret, teachers are tired of it too!) We’re tired of staying in, of working from home, of missing our friends, Of not seeing our family. We have a granddaughter born 4 weeks ago that we’ve yet to see in person.  We are tired of missing out on special milestones like weddings and graduations  We mis movies, restaurants, playgrounds and the gym.

 Now we know it’s all for the common good, the steps we’re taking are important for every one’s well-being; but it doesn’t mean we always feel happy about it.  Many of us are tired, cranky, bored and overwhelmed.  Or maybe that’s just me! 

Everywhere we go, there we are.  How’s that for pithy?!  We are not going many places, but even in the few places we do go, we bring imperfect selves with us.  We bring our lonely, impatient, fearful, overworked, isolated, trapped, and perhaps sad selves with us each day wherever we go in this strange season.  But what to do about it?  We can’t change our circumstances at the moment.  So what to do?

Perhaps a story might help.  Once upon a time, many years ago, there was a young mother with 4 small children who felt many of these same feelings.  Any resemblance of that mother to the woman sitting in front of you is purely coincidental!