I am heartsick, heartbroken, anguished, angry, devastated, scared… so many emotions, for so many reasons, that it feels as though my spirit is sinking beneath the weight of… everything.

A man murdered in the street for the color of his skin.
A “leader” (I cannot figure out how to refer to our non-President in any other way…) who stokes anger and division.
Elected officials who refuse to listen.
The anguished, angry, cries of people who have endured too much for too long… people who have led lives that I will never, ever be able to understand.
I don’t share their experiences.
I don’t know what their lives are like.
I know only my privileged, white, hetero existence in a world that accepts me as I am but refuses to do the same for them.
I know I need to learn. I know I’m probably saying the wrong things.
But I want to know more. I want to be better.
I need to know more. I need to be better.

The hardest part? Not having anyone to share this process with.
I can’t talk to my parents about it- it might as well not be happening.
I can’t talk to my spouse about it – he’s not in the same place as I am, a place of learning and openness. He rests in his privilege, and makes statements that I fully disagree with, that make me realize I cannot share openly with him.
I can’t talk to my friends about it – as many of them do not share my views.

So I’ll start this journey on my own. Perhaps I’ll find others on similar journeys along the way. But it needs to happen.

“Stay angry, little Meg,” Mrs Whatsit whispered. “You will need all your anger now.”

I’ve had a really difficult time since the Supreme Court in our state struck down the safer-at-home order that was, well, keeping us all safer at home.

I’ve been frustrated and, quite frankly, angry at the people (I’m trying to be kind here) who are protesting such measures in my city.

I’m even more frustrated by people who won’t take the simple step of protecting others by keeping their distance and wearing masks.

You’re not doing these things just for yourself – you’re doing them for other people, too.

And as my frustration and anger built and grew, I realized that I needed to do something to shift my mindset. Because this was not healthy for me.

So I’ve been trying to cultivate compassion and understanding.

I spent some time yesterday reading poetry and other writings on compassion. One of the most striking and compelling was Maria Shriver’s post in her Sunday Paper. (If you don’t subscribe, I recommend it – just Google it. She writes something insightful and interesting and compelling every week, and I find myself agreeing with her more often than not…)

I can’t find the text to link to, specifically, but yesterday, she wrote:

“So maybe as we reflect on this long weekend, we can each remember that while we have gone through this pandemic together, we have all had very different experiences. Some have lost their lives or their livelihoods. Others have lost hope. Some are remembering loved ones who lost their lives in a war defending our freedoms. Others are just trying to get back to work so they can put food on the table for their families.

This may be the start of summer, but it’s an uncertain time for just about everyone I speak to, myself included. In fact, it’s a fragile time for so many. So, let’s be gentle with one another. We don’t really know what people have gone through these past few months. We don’t know if that person walking next to us is a Gold Star mom or dad or sibling, or the family member of a health care worker who lost their life keeping us safe.

This weekend let’s try to celebrate one another. Let’s seek to get to know one another. Let’s ask each other how the last few months have been and let others know we are here for them—not just this weekend, but for the long haul as well.

After all, what makes us the country we are is our humanity, our empathy, our kindness, and our effort to understand the other—regardless of whether they have the same opinion about opening up or wearing a mask as we do. If we can try to express gratitude for what we have, who we are, and what we can be as a nation, then we will have a memorable summer. Now won’t that be something to celebrate.”

I hit a wall on Thursday.
I was just done.
Done with work, done with having to wear a mask to the grocery store and Target.
Done with people who were ignoring all of the safety precautions.
Done with the stores being out of what I want and like to buy.
I was done.
It was a rather whiny (and unproductive) day, perhaps not surprisingly.

I’ve done pretty well so far, with the self-isolation and safer at home rules. But I think we all have our limits, and apparently mine was reached on Thursday.

I whined a bit, complained a bit more, and finally got over myself.

It wasn’t fun, but I made it through. And then Friday was a huge mess for different reasons.

Sigh.

I took the weekend – a gloomy, rainy one – to reset. I actually did not do any substantive work on Sunday, a break that was much needed. I cleaned out file drawer #3 of 4, which was so satisfying (although WHY did we put our SSNs on literally EVERYTHING back in the day? Good grief, the pile of shredding I have…). I zoomed with my family. I read. I just… well, I kind of blobbed out, as my mother would say. And it was lovely.

Which reminded me that, well, we all have days like last Thursday (and Friday). Or weeks like that. And that’s okay. If every day was sunshine, rainbows and bunnies, then I think the good days would kind of lose their meaning.

Josh Radnor, in his most recent Museletter, wrote about the flow of reality… that we are borne along by the flow of reality, and any sense that we had – or have – control is just an illusion. It really resonated with me, the ultimate control freak. This time is reminding me that I am not in control of what happens, but I am in control of how I respond to it. Sometimes that’s whining (hopefully not that often…) and sometimes it’s disconnecting for a day. But the best days are the days when I at least TRY to respond in a positive way. To remind myself that no, I’m not in control, that the days are different from how they were before, but there are still good ones.

I don’t think there’s a tidy end to this, but… I hope you have a good day, or as good of a day as you can in whatever your current circumstances. I hope to continue my one-day streak over here…:)