During my brief stint as a college football player, my coaches often spoke in parables and fragments designed to simplify challenges ahead—whether those challenges were on the field or off.
For all intents and purposes, the hay is in the barn, the food’s on the table—it’s time to eat!
Since our introduction to COVID-19, this has been my personal mantra. It means doing what needs to be done, and seeing challenges not as insurmountable difficulties but as manageable tasks. Nothing should deter you from your goals, in other words, because you’re more prepared than you might believe.
Jeryl Cole exemplifies this aphorism. He and his wife Tai own the boutique beer and wine shop Off the Rox, which is just around the corner from our house in the Highlandtown neighborhood of Baltimore. Since the start of quarantine, they’ve been open. Selling beer, giving daps, smiling, greeting their customers by name, and providing a sanctuary outside everyone’s residential barricade.
Jeryl and I always get a quick rap with each other when I stop in to grab a beer. Though we’re both masked-up, we still share a laugh or two. I make it a point to always ask him, “How are y’all holdin’ up, boss?”—he and his wife have a nine-month-old baby and two toddlers. Per usual, Jeryl responds, “Ah, you know man, same old.” As in, everything has changed, but in essence, nothing has changed.
We all want to get back to “normal,” but what if that doesn’t happen? Do we quit? I’d say now is the most essential time to take care of our minds and our friends and family, and to work on our perspectives of the current state of affairs. Not to accept them—but for the sake of our mental health, we must continue to live our lives, and find those things that make us feel human.
If football has taught me anything, I know we’ll all become more resolute in the face of adversity. We may even find a level of calmness during trying times, and continue on with business as usual. Just as Jeryl and Tai have always done.
