Uh, hey!
It’s been a minute. But if you thought you wouldn’t hear from me in the midst of this shitshow, you were mistaken, and I wonder, really, whether you know me at all!
So, last time we talked (and, probably the time before that and the time before that) I was Regular Depressed. Since then, we’ve had a sexy little economic collapse and pandemic outbreak! I suppose it tracks that now I am Apocalypse Depressed. Truthfully, I did have a couple weeks of that, and of course it’s not over, but what’s become the New Normal has set in a little bit and I have found reasons to laugh and smile and get out of bed, so right now I am doing okay.
As COVID-19 was unfolding in the eastern hemisphere and felt lightyears away, I started getting serious of my longtime desire to adopt a dog and, as it happens, that process—and the spread of a virus—moves pretty quickly!
Wednesday, March 11, my colleagues and I celebrated a huge organizational milestone and went home exhausted and happy with little else on our minds. By the time we got to the office the next day, closures began in the U.S. (including at the location in Houston where we’d had our celebratory event on Wednesday). In the Midwest, we were—and still are, to some degree—a couple weeks behind the devastation. But as the DOW collapsed along with loads and loads of public infrastructure at the hands of capitalism, it became clear that our little, though internationally-reaching nonprofit needed to make some quick changes.
So, like every other business, we got a plan in place to limit staff time in the office. On Sunday I met my dog and her foster for the first time. Monday at work we discussed our plan moving forward. Wednesday evening, after my first day working at the office with only two other people, my dog came home to me. Then before the next week was through, we realized our plan was insufficient.
Fortunately, my first few days with my dog went smoothly. Like most rescues, she’s a little skittish but eager to please, and her favorite thing is to sit on my lap and sleep. So while the world outside started to crumble a little, I was lucky to have a funny little friend to lie on my chest like the world’s most effective weighted blanket.
Our first weekend together I finally broke down. Friday we learned of layoffs at work, and cuts in hours with the ultimate goal of staying afloat while all this goes on for who-knows-how-long. Though layoffs were happening everywhere already and I knew they were a possibility for my org, losing a quarter of our staff in an afternoon was a horrible kind of reality check.
Though baseball season has been indefinitely postponed, my boss called me in as a utility player, and I am so grateful to still have the job I love so much. I am fortunate to work somewhere that leadership is making impossibly hard decisions that will hopefully make it possible to come out on the “other side” of this viable. I am heartbroken by the sacrifices that were made to make it possible and I’m fearful that more sacrifices will be made along the way—I know I’m next in line for potential layoffs, and I am trying very hard not to fixate on it.
My dog’s name is Petunia. After I met her (and learned her admittedly horrible capital-W-White Girl rescue name) I created a longlist of potential new names. Tuesday night, before she was to be dropped off with me for good, I lay awake brainstorming giddily, unable to sleep.
I called my mom Wednesday morning to check in and catch up. The weekend prior, we had planned for my mom and siblings to visit on their spring break, and they’d have left Monday, would have met Petunia with me.
Anyway, I was talking to my mom and telling her that she’d be coming home Wednesday and she asked about a name. I said I still hadn’t decided, and she chatted for a while about wanting to get another family dog someday, and how a name she liked wouldn’t be a good fit for a German shepherd because it was too delicate. My great grandmother on my maternal grandpa’s side once had a scrappy little dog with that name and my mom had always liked it. The name was serendipitously on my list: Petunia. So that felt like a sign.
I am confident that without Petunia my mental health could not withstand the stress of this global pandemic business. The breakdown I had that first weekend we were together was rough, and as I sat bawling on my bedroom floor over the state of the world I kept looking at her little face and feeling grateful she was there. It’s not only obligation, but love for her that lifts me up enough to get out of bed and keep moving forward. She’s also very funny, and it feels good to laugh now that I have limited contact with my friends and family and coworkers.
Settling into the New Normal has been so, so strange for me and for everyone else. We are concerned about being creative enough or productive enough with all this new free time while also trying to figure out how to pay our bills and feed our families. There’s a presidential election on, somehow, that is both extremely critical right now but also feels impossible and frivolous while everyone on earth does damage control. We need change now—or, better yet, years and years ago—but we can’t get the changes we need until we make the Big Change, and that becomes less and less likely as our entire institution breaks down. It feels very bleak.
A couple weeks before All This happened, I went to the Bernie Sanders rally in St. Paul, and it was so wonderful. I listened to local leaders—nurses, teachers, and farmers!—talk about how badly we need to improve our social safety nets and support people who provide essential services and how our only hope of moving toward doing that is Bernie. Thinking back, it feels like sick foreshadowing, though at that point we were aware of the situation in China but still felt pretty invincible, I guess.
The next week, the St. Paul Federation of Educators went on strike to secure more resources for students. The district moved quickly to make sure kids could still get bused to school for meals. Not long before, a group of healthcare providers in the Twin Cities were on strike to negotiate new, fairer contracts.
Both groups made agreements eventually, and the world proceeded to implode on itself. Now, workers from Amazon and Instacart and WholeFoods and a variety of other services deemed essential are on strike to demand hazard pay and safe work conditions. If not now, then when? But we are also in the midst of economic collapse, so these people risk a great deal (financial security, insurance coverage, etc.) and are, it goes without saying, heroes.
I’m not sure what I set out to do by writing this, but I knew I had to write something, at the very least to get it out of my system. My feeble attempts to uplift are made even weaker by the state of the world but I hope that you know that I am still, as always, on your team.
This is an opportunity, if nothing else, for all of us to be better for one another, to pause and consider how our actions (now as innocuous as going to the grocery store) may impact those around us, and consider what small things we can do to help mitigate the inevitable suffering of our neighbors.
It’s a chance to be kinder, more thoughtful, more generous, gentler with ourselves and others. We are living in unprecedented times, and every single person and community will be changed by this experience. Despite our frustrations that wealth and resources are being hoarded and deliberately withheld by those in power, everyday people are acting selflessly and generously to help one another along. No, it shouldn’t be that way, but it is, and so I think it’s okay to be humbled by and grateful to see it.
I really believe that the only way out of this is through, together. Much of the damage control happening right now is because people are choosing to do the right thing, whether governors or mayors or presidents are making the right call at the right time. I think it’s because we love each other, and we know we need each other, and we are doing our best for each other. I am grateful for that.
In any event, it’s April. The snow has all melted here—knock on wood—and with all this free time, lots of people are out walking and appreciating the sunshine. When I take Petunia on walks around our neighborhood, or when I go in to the office to ship packages to customers so we can carry on as an organization, I feel that we’re finding ways to keep moving forward and that has to count for something. If we keep doing that and taking note of who is showing up for whom, we’ll come out the other side ready to make real, tangible change.
As we know, the peak of this pandemic is yet to come in the States, and things will get worse before they get better. Kind neighbors can only take us so far. Please, if you aren’t already, think long and hard about the ways our federal leadership has failed us. If this awful situation has not opened your eyes to the need for universal healthcare and the destruction of capitalism, I don’t know what will. Clearly, our current systems are not sustainable, and they are being stress tested at the absolute worst possible time. This is not normal, or healthy, or functional, or conscionable. The main reason things have spiraled this wildly out of control—besides gross incompetence and hubris—is because capitalism rewards the hoarding of wealth and resources. The money for the change we need is there, but it’s in the wrong hands, and the wealthy are proving they will not “rise to the occasion” to use their wealth for good. We cannot go on like this, and we do not need to be fighting over the resources that we know are plentiful, just out of reach. I hope you see that. I say this out of extreme tenderness and desperation. It does not need to be this way.
In closing, a few thoughts to carry with you as we find ways to carry on:
- You’re doing a great job.
- I am thinking of you.
- Nobody is being as productive as they were Before, and if they are, it won’t last long. We will all burn out, and that’s okay.
- Relax your shoulders and un-clench your jaw.
- Breathe in the spring air and pause to feel the sun on your face.
- Be kind and be patient.
- Ask for help when you need it. We all need help.
- Take care.
- I love you.
Lexie