Maybe I'm Not Okay Today

I cried the other night during an episode of Schitt’s Creek. If you’ve never seen the show, just know it’s objectively unsad. Subjectively hilarious. A show we—my husband and I—specifically selected to start watching because it’s funny and light and distracting and basically perfect for a time such as this. Yet there I sat, in bed at 10:30 on a Thursday night with tears rolling down my cheeks and a lump in my throat because David was awkwardly sweet and kind to his boss’ stepdaughter.

That’s when I realized, huh, maybe I’m not okay today.

For 3/4ths of you, this probably seems baffling—that a person could literally have tears rolling down her cheeks as the first sign that something is amiss in the emotions department. But some of you know exactly what I mean. You know what it is to stuff down, to pivot, to give a wide berth to your feelings because we have things to do today and crying isn’t one of them. The yawn of the emotional abyss is too threatening—feeling anything seems like a gateway to feeling everything, so we’ll feel nothing, please and thank you.

One question though: How’s that working for you in 2020? 

I’ll answer for myself and say not great. Oh, don’t get me wrong—I’m still pretty good at sidestepping my emotions. That’s what 37 years of practice will do for a girl. But things are … amiss. Like the fact that I’m not sleeping. I have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep and basically the whole sleep situation is not really a thing right now. I’m exercising and vitamining and drinking a little more water with no increase in REM hours, so I’m beginning to suspect The Feelings are to blame. 

As we’ve already discussed, I’m prone to inexplicable crying mid sitcom. I’m also snapping at my family when they don’t like the dinner I serve them, my weekly cocktail is now more like daily-ish, and sometimes I leave the house as soon as my husband gets home from work, drive my car to an empty parking lot, and just sit there, in the quiet, until I get a text letting me know the kids are in bed and the coast is clear.

I’m not an expert in human behavior, but I think maybe these things mean that I’m not entirely okay. And if I’m not okay, and we’re all living different versions of the same hellish year, then it seems like there’s a chance you’re not okay either?

We don’t have to talk about it, of course. If there’s one thing I’m sick to death of in 2020 it’s effing talking about it. We could never ever talk about it again, and that would be too soon. So just, I don’t know, blink twice or something if you’re not okay either.

Assuming you’ve blinked, we could sit shoulder to metaphorical shoulder. We could turn on a better crying conduit than Schitt’s Creek (I like Queer Eye or Steel Magnolias or Little Women, personally, but I’m open to suggestions). And—here’s where I get a little crazy—we could feel something. 

Not the whole of it, of course—God, could anyone handle the whole of it right now? But for the space of a makeover or the minutes in the graveyard with M’Lynn and Ouiser or the moment when Jo wonders if she made a horrible mistake by saying no to Laurie and now she’s going to be alone forever … we feel it, just a little. We let a few tears roll down our cheeks, and we don’t swallow the sob right away. It’s too much, too dangerous, too open-ended to be sad for us but to be sad for them? We can be a little sad for them. 

So we sit, you and I. And I know you’re crying and you know I’m crying, but we don’t have to talk about it. The knowing is enough. 

Because maybe I’m not okay today, and maybe you aren’t either. But I see you. And you see me. For all that I feel that I can’t name or know, there’s one emotion I note by its absence.

I don’t feel lonely. And that’s because I have you.

What I Tell My Children

We don’t watch the news. We haven’t in years—I subscribe to a couple of online newspapers, but there’s no TV in our house blaring the nightly news like there was when I was growing up. This means my children are shielded from a lot of the daily headlines, and that used to feel like a good choice.

But this weekend, my kids spent the night with their grandparents, who are nightly news watchers. And the next day, we’d been home less than an hour when Nathan told me he saw a white police officer kneel on the back of a black man’s neck and the news said he did that for eight minutes and that the black man died even though he kept saying he couldn’t breathe and why would anyone do that to a person but especially a police officer whose job it is to protect people?

I don’t have words for all of what I felt in that moment, but I am honest enough to say I was uncomfortable. With the baldness of the question. With the weight of the answer. And with my choice to vault my role as shield into one my top priorities as a mother. Like any mother, I have hopes that my children will be world-changers. But, if I want them to change it, first I need to be honest about the condition of the world we’re handing them.

Slowly and haltingly, I explained the story behind what Nathan had seen on TV. I reminded him of the stories we’ve read before and the things that have happened in history that we’ve talked about, and explained their connection to Mr. Floyd. Nathan’s eyes grew wide and his hand covered his mouth and when he learned the very worst we as humans are capable of, he shook his head in disappointment. 

“Is there anything we can do, Mom?” he wanted to know.

“There is,” I said. “We can do better.”

Right now, for me, better looks like listening. Listening to understand. To learn what I don’t know and unlearn some of what I think I do. To pay attention to my posture when I listen, and when I stiffen or recoil … that’s where I press in because I’m finding that where it’s most uncomfortable is where I need to do the most unpacking.

Better looks like pushing for the most honest version of reality. Not the one that sweeps the darkness under the rug—the one where we “don’t see race” or “raise our children to be colorblind.” But also not the cynical one—the one that shrugs as the world burns and says “it’s not like I can change it, anyway.”

The honest truth is that we’re capable of great and terrible things. But boil that down, and we’re capable. We can do something—we can listen, speak, act, love.

It is this way, but it doesn’t have to stay this way. 

Or at least, this is what I tell my children. 

---

If you want to join me in listening, these are a few of the voices I’m paying attention to:
The Conscious Kid
Be The Bridge
Black Coffee with White Friends
Austin Channing Brown
Osheta Moore
Sam Collier
Tanorria Askew
Patricia A. Taylor
Luvvie Ajayi Jones
Layla F. Saad

The Day Jon Lost His Job

On Wednesday morning, Jon was laid off from his job. He worked for a design firm whose biggest clients are collegiate and professional athletics, and the pandemic has radically altered the industry in two short weeks. We had talked a few days ago about preparing for this possibility down the road, but neither of us expected it to come so quickly or harshly.

He was offered no severance. Our health insurance ends in five days. My freelance income has dried up to a trickle. Suddenly our savings, which seemed so robust last month, felt like so little.

It began as a very dark day.

But.

Our family and friends have been so generous with their love and support. It’s such a lonely time right now, being physically distanced from everyone except the people who live within our four walls. But we did not feel alone on Wednesday. All day long, emails and texts and phone calls flowed into our home.

And that was the first good thing.

Then, that afternoon the sun came out. And not just a peek or two through the clouds; true, blue sky sunniness. Jon had spent all day on the computer and phone, reaching out to every contact he could think of and lining up every possible lead. But the four of us headed outside and went for a ride on scooters and bikes, and Ellie made “flower soup” in a puddle in the driveway, and the warmth and brightness seemed to tangibly lift some of the weight from our shoulders.

And that was the second good thing.

But the best came last. Nathan usually uses our shower at night. There’s a waterproof notepad on the wall that Jon got me one Christmas after I complained about losing all my good ideas in the shower. Nathan uses it to write notes to us from time to time, and as I was putting him in bed last night, he let me know there was a new note for us.

And that was the third good thing.

It’s a tough time. But it’s not without goodness and hope.

Keep spreading kindness and light.