I want to come up with a concise and meaningful way to express how the last week, more specifically the last 21 hours, have pushed me as a human and reporter with empathy and actual skin in the game, with stress and hardships but also unbelievable fortune relative to others.

It's not short, but this is the best way I can express what's going on in a world that is feeling more and less humane each day.

Today began at 11:30 p.m. last night, about two hours before I was supposed to be allowed back out in public per my doctor following my COVID-19 scare

@HughesRosana @News4Mass and I did 20 hrs of reporting on an F-3 tornado that ripped through the area.

I wore a mask and stayed several feet away during teary, painful interviews w/ people who lost their homes and with a woman whose young nephew died in bed next to his fiance.

I saw some neighbors take coronavirus cautions and I saw other strangers hugging and loving on each other. We saw a pastor run frantically into one of the worst areas looking for his mother and countless other scenes of upheaval for people.

It was an unimaginable feeling to see our area, already rocked, like most of the world, by a pandemic robbing people of normalcy and peace of mind, torn inside out by a storm that came and went in 30 minutes.

By midday when information began to really flow about the gravity of the storms, our website completely shut down for three hours, preventing us from posting any new information for our community and inhibiting people from accessing what was out there.

Eventually people were able to access the site, including hundreds of free stories about the virus and storm which we have shared without a paywall to ensure a public service.

Around the same time, in some kind of cruel joke about how wild one day can be...

Our parent company sent an email about the virus impacting business, imploring some employees to take voluntary furloughs (soberingly advertising that much of the company would actually make more than usual on unemployment) and warning of unspecified mandatory cuts otherwise.

The mental and physical toll of the last several weeks has been bizarre but subdued until the last week when my own health came into question, ending in a 20 hour work day without sleep, spent mourning with but distancing myself from sources across two counties.

I am well (enough), my home was spared and I, as of now, have not taken a hit to my employment, and I'm not going to post about any of those hurdles without appreciating how fortunate I am compared to many.

I don't mean this as a pity session, but this is part of the experience.

But empathizing with those around me who are not so lucky while trying to ignore the shaking foundations of each of those things in my own life is taxing and unlike anything I've experienced as a journalist or person.

And I see it hitting colleagues, officials I cover and people working in these crises extremely hard, and it makes my heart ache.

It'll be fine. We'll work the same eay tomorrow, throughout this or whatever the next crisis is unless we're incapable of or barred from doing so.

I wish this had some better moral to it. I'm just stressed and recognize the burdons of those around me and hope that we can all get a safe night's rest tonight in order to face it all again tomorrow.

Stay safe, take care of yourself and thanks for letting me vent.