Ice and Rain
If you’re prone to anxiety as, am I, then the internet is the worst thing that ever happened. It knows what interests you and gives it to you, in spades. Take the coming winter storm as it pertains to Central Texas. In its simplest form the storm is bringing cold and ice and possibly snow. But internet Cassandras are out in full force. They remind us of Snowpacolypse. They talk about ice. They warn of power outages. They are shrill. They are loud. They are constant. Why? Clicks!
I push through them as quickly as I can and yearn for the days of curated news, with only one or two people talking, local people you could trust. But my TV habit is long dead, I live in the country, and the internet is what I have. I am left to sort wheat from chaff, and remind myself, I’ve done this before, lots of times. Still, I’m anxious because I’m no longer a young man, and what will I do if the power fails and we’re surrounded by ice. Stay inside would be my best guess and wear warm clothes.
In the end, I make myself comfortable by checking the boxes. I’m protecting pipes and plants, ensuring there’s food in the house, and falling back on my innate trust in the system. I live blocks from the headquarters of my electric co-op, and I know they are planning for the coming storm. They too are checking boxes. TxDOT is putting brine on the roads. We are ready. Then I think about the people all over this country who live hand in glove with this sort of weather, so maybe two days of ice and rain isn’t really that big of a deal after all.