I’m sitting in my apartment obsessing over the rainbow my window prism is making on the floor. Why am I obsessing? It’s not because I don’t have anything to do because I actually have a long list of things to do. I am obsessing because the rainbow is evidence that the sun is out. I’ve been sitting in my apartment doing work and keeping busy since this morning when I got in from my daily jog. It was gloomy and overcast when I went for my jog and now…now it’s sunny out.
So, what now? Do I go out again? Do I “enjoy” the sun while it’s here? Will I actually enjoy the sun if I decide to go out for a second time today? Will my anxiety overtake me, making the foray into the great outdoors moot? Am I overreacting? Is there such thing as overreacting right now?
I am sorry to disappoint you but I don’t have any answers to the questions I am posing to you now. Not even a one. Spoiler alert: I decided not to go outside again. Sadly, this decision was not easily reached and once it was reached, the questions didn’t stop circling through my head. I revisited and second-guessed my decision. I still am, sorta. And yet, I made the decision.
Here’s the thing, I didn’t just come to that particular conclusion as a matter of self-interest. I made the decision thinking of my neighbors. I made it considering the front-line and essential workers. This is not a propaganda piece. I don’t think I am better than anyone. I am not making things up to push a particular agenda.
I love being outside. I mean I LOVE it. I know that I am not so unique but also, that my love for being outside is a little bit elevated. I love being outside in a way that encourages me to walk to dinner with a friend when it’s a mile and a half away. I love being outside in a way that causes me to bundle up when the temperature is in the teens and head into a snowy tundra. I love being outside in that I will risk 7,000 bug bites to traipse around my neighborhood in the stifling humidity of July in New York. Being outside, walking, makes me feel free. When I’m feeling stressed or overwhelmed, I go OUTSIDE. When I was nursing my broken heart back to healed, you could often find me schlepping around outside.
All of a sudden, everything has changed. Instead of outside feeling like a bit of respite, it feels scary. Outside feels unknown. Outside has never felt scary and the unknown of it has never had a negative connotation. Not even in another country. Not when by myself on a trail. Never. And yet, here we are.
I am trying to be aware without being fearful. I am trying to be smart and proactive and self-protective without succumbing to panic. I don’t feel particularly filled with dread, but I do feel that little tingle. That small bit of unease swirling around my belly. And then, on top of that tingle, I feel pissed at myself that I have the tingle. Have you had the experience I’m describing? Like maybe you decide to order in food to boldly support a local business and then you feel overwhelmed at the prospect of having the food delivered. The food is okay, right? What about the containers? What about the bag? You watched that YouTube and also read an article and yet now you are beginning to question the whole process.
Perhaps you decided to pop into CVS to pick up a few things. It felt right. CVS did send you that email describing its highly regimented sanitation techniques. They have those plastic barriers everywhere, the employees wear protective gear, and the stores are regularly deep-cleaned. But now that you are inside, you are thinking that the aisles don’t quite leave room for six feet of separation and you are unclear as to what payment method would be the best plan (credit card? Apple pay?).
Maybe you haven’t felt this way at all and I feel a bit envious of you. My feelings come and go. The thing is, they don’t just wave on a daily basis. It can be hourly. In the morning I can feel sure about everything I am doing and by the afternoon I feel like nothing I do is “right.”
I am going to let you in on a little secret. You can’t do anything right but that’s only because there is no right. Unless you are also that one guy who also survived the Spanish Flu (holy shit, right?), these are unprecedented times. We are all just trying to figure shit out moment by moment. Information is constantly shifting and changing. The protocols are being revised by the minute. Generally, there is no singular reliable source that we can turn to, so our information is a giant mush pile of what we can get our hands on. My particular recipe is a little CNN mixed with online articles, some social media, certain talk show personalities (i.e. Seth Meyers, John Oliver), and an abject avoidance of mostly anything coming out of the Federal government.
We are each left to find our own recipe based on who or what we trust, where we live, and what our threshold considerations are when it comes to the information we are absorbing.
So yeah, clusterfuck.
Anyway, when faced with these moments of uncertainty, within this uncertain world, I do something revolutionary. I make a decision, accept it, and forgive myself. Crazy, right? So, I made a decision not to go out into the sun, I stopped obsessing over that decision, and I told myself it is JUST fine because I’ll go out tomorrow. I reassured myself that I have enjoyed many a sunny day and I will enjoy many other sunny days in the future. I let it go.
No FOMO. No self-deprecation. Just acceptance.
This is not easy, but in a time where we are spending a shit ton of time inside, it is absolutely essential for peace of mind. I promise you that. You can safely transfer take-out or just have faith that your local restaurant will make it without your support one night, you can securely shop at CVS or maybe go a little longer without those few things, and I can handle a day where it’s sunny out and I don’t get to be the beneficiary of such. We can make decisions and live with them. We can choose peace over turmoil and self-torture.
Let’s do it together. Shall we?
I’m taking a break from writing tomorrow. Not because I don’t care about all of you (because I do). Not because this feels like an obligation (because it doesn’t). Just because tomorrow I am going to attempt to free my mind of all of this. A day off. A day of rest. Maybe you can do it too.
If you are an essential worker, I will keep you in my heart tomorrow, and every day thereafter. May you get through each day safe and as sound as you can be.
Talk to you Monday.
L.
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