What a time to be fucking alive, am I right?!
I rarely censor my thoughts or filter my use of profanity seeing as how my name is in the URL of the website you’re reading (and, also, I just don’t care), however, I’ve found that during particularly emotionally taxing times such as these, cursing makes me feel better when done with a fervor and weight that effectively translates the momentousness of using the noun or verb, interjection or adverb. Pretending any of this “isn’t dang normal” doesn’t pack the kind of punch that, say, “this shit isn’t mother fucking okay.” does, you know?! All of that is to say that I’m cranky, tired, and overstimulated by the constant presence of my three children and husband who has taken up real estate at the dining room table so I am, therefore, substantially more foul-mouthed than normal. So, allow this to serve as your warning.
Which brings me to this week. As of Wednesday morning, this all felt novel and doable. (I blame naivety and optimist for the lies. All lies.) Wednesday afternoon, I could hear the faint whistle of a very different tune. On Wednesday morning, my inner goddess was boldly shouting Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive as her anthem and declaration that she’s. got. this. By 4pm, my inner goddess admitted defeat and allowed the haunting ballad of Lauryn Hill singing Killing Me Softly to fill our psyche and announce our white flag so that we needn’t not bother exerting the effort it would require to wave our acceptance of impending doom.
And, so, I did what any natural-born realist would do: I leaned into whatever feeling were more convenient in any given moment. Which, I’ll admit, made me a big manic. I fluctuated quickly and hastily as I processed a wave of volatile panic, suffocating uncertainty, apathy and pragmatism, earnest optimism, and a feeling of shame that can I can only compare to survivor’s guilt because while this shit storm may be annoying as royal fuck, my family isn’t truly suffering compared to the millions of families who are worrying about much bigger and heavy things than whether or not monitoring your kids from a security camera while hiding from them in a closet is illegal or merely frowned upon. Some of those feelings were fleeting while others required me to do some self-inventory and nearly always ended with wanting to punch myself in the face with perspective.
With that said, I do believe that no matter how ridiculous and exaggerated the feelings I’ve experienced likely are, they’re valid. As long as I remain aware of the fact that what I categorize as a problem is in all actuality simply a privileged annoyance to the majority of the population, I’m free to indulge my being miffed about standing outside of the bubble of contentment I prefer my life to exist within. Like Brené Brown says, it’s okay to piss and moan as long as we do it with some perspective.
Which brings me to this minute right now. It’s 9:27pm on Sunday night. I’m sitting at our dining room table while Joe watches re-runs of various NCAA championship games from the comfort of our bed. He won’t admit it but out of every area this global pandemic has affected in his life, he’s more resentful about the cancellation of March Madness. Personally, I found that to be a silver lining because this is the first year out of the fourteen we’ve been together where he maintains awareness of my existence since he isn’t busy obsessing over UNC basketball, violently pacing back and forth in our living room, cursing college students who can’t hear him tell them what they should’ve done instead of the thing that they did which will just ruin his life as he knows it.
But I digress.
Joe is coping, I think. We’re all in survival mode trying to make sense of what this new reality looks like while also trying to keep our dependents blissfully blind to the chaos that cloaks every single new day it seems as of late. I am and always have been very dedicated to dutifully coping and, as such, believe that we shouldn’t have to defend or justify the form that coping takes as long as it isn’t hurting anyone. My personal coping strategies differ depending on the day and the place the day has landed on the pendulum of potential shittiness. As of late, coping strategies look a lot like organizing every closet, cupboard, and drawer in my home. Some days it’s zoning out the world by obsessively working on and finishing countless house projects I started months ago but never finished because I got distracted by starting another project that I, too, didn’t finish. There are often little pockets of the day where my soul needs a soother, a pick-me-up, or a reset. This remedy can come in the form of drinking a glass of rosé for lunch or sitting in a scalding hot salty water bath after wrestling the kids to bed successfully and inhaling the mind-numbing scent of a stupidly-priced, questionably-titled bougie candle that I admittedly bought as a joke because I thought it was immature and ironic but now I love the smell which, for the record, does decidedly not smell like a vagina.
I’ve been hearing self-care and its’ “necessary practice” being thrown around a lot right now which, for starters, I must acknowledge the sheer privilege that resides in possessing the ability to devote separate energy to taking care of one’ self when most people are worrying about how to feed their family or pay their rent or keep their jobs or feed their children or protect their elderly relatives from a disease that could very likely kill them or protect themselves from the pandemic while they work on the front lines in hospitals and clinics and are watching people die all around them.
Sure, self care is necessary during times of uncertainty and stress but I’d argue that self-care also manifests as the ability to simply pause and retain perspective by looking around at the very many things so often overlooked because we’re too often head down in our phones, knee deep in the trek of the daily wind and grind. I went on a walk this afternoon with Joe while the kids rode their bikes a few blocks to the local playground and park. Instead of inherently assuming annoyance due to that nagging feeling of guilt because if I’m walking with no purpose or destination in mind, I wasn’t being productive and isn’t value based on productivity? As my feet hit the pavement and I followed my babies and watched their newfound confidence on bikes, I dedicatedly embraced the art of having nowhere to go, nothing to produce or complete, and indulged in looking up, out, and around. And, holy shit, you guys! Did you know that it’s mother fucking spring? Did you know that we’re in literally fucking bloom?! Who would even begin to think that in the midst of our collective worlds coming to an unexpected and screeching halt, that the earth would somehow find a way to…. continue to thrive? Both wildly and as what felt like an act of rebellion, the trees were smothered by waves of shockingly purple and pink blooms… it was so damn beautiful it nearly brought me to tears. I mean, it was just so beautiful and majestic to witness and unbelievable and maddening that I somehow allowed myself to become desensitized to this staggeringly magnificent act of Mother Earth by indulging in the glorification of business. How easily we forget that the world doesn’t stop spinning just because we’ve been forced to pause and how much of an asshole am I for needing this pause caused by a pandemic to remind me that while I’m worrying about things that don’t actually matter in the grand scheme of what makes life worth living, the magic of mere existence is happening outside my flipping’ window at this very precise moment. For an hour, I observed vibrant-as-fuck, shockingly saturated violet leaves growing out of wood and it felt novel, familiar, childlike, indulgent, and life-affirming in equal measures. I am calling it my self-care for the day while also the mind fuck it wore as a disguise.
So, good people, I hope that whatever is getting you through the day and whatever gets you through tomorrow and the day after that is enough to propel you through the unprecedented bullshit we’re all attempting to navigate our way through.
I hope you’re being kind. I hope you’re remembering to laugh and to laugh with others. I hope you’re nurturing your body and mind and soul and are allowing others to step in and help when you are too exhausted to keep going. I hope you’re remembering that we’re all in the thick of it together and, for the most part, people don’t suck as badly as often fear and are, in fact, usually pretty awesome. Most importantly, I hope you’re remembering to look up and notice the immense beauty surrounding us in nature, in people, and in dark times that’s dutiful in its’ display as long as you’re open to finding it.
Love + Light, friends.
We got this damn thing.