Hi friends! Happy Saturday.
It’s 2pm and I’m sitting outside drinking coffee (will I regret that later?) and started thinking about this weekend. For those of us in the U.S., it’s a holiday weekend — Memorial Day is Monday. It’s also my dad’s birthday that day; he’ll be 83.
Last Memorial Day, we were in the throes of the pandemic around here. It had, as we would soon realize, only just begun. Around that same time, my mom ended up at getting checked out for what we found out were blood clots, a souvenir from her previous rounds of chemo. That was, as we would soon realize, the beginning of the end.
And so, because I’m someone with an extremely limited ability to compartmentalize (and who’s never been accused of being too “breezy”), I have a lot of thoughts swirling around in my head this weekend. I — we — have come a hell of a long way from a year ago. And, my sadness bucket is full; it runneth over from the rainstorm cloud that followed me for months after losing my mom (almost a year ago now). I’ve spent the last month or so moving it aside, taping a lid on it and trying to throw myself onto the bright side. The water sloshes out sometimes, like right now, but I am still leaning hard into the sunshine (even in this May Grey here in SoCal) and wearing a bracelet that repeats [half of] a mantra of my mom’s — “Don’t worry, be happy.” ((Pssst — bracelet was an Etsy order. Highly recommend!))
Social media makes the world small, but it also makes it easy to think there’s all these things you’re *supposed* to be doing. Like moving on, or jumping back into regular, “before times” life. But that’s not really how true life works. Expectations are man-made, whether they’re from society, or the judge-y voice in the back of your head, and they mean……. nothing. I created this space in the fall because writing is my outlet, and also, as a reminder that none of us are alone. Community, you know? And there may be a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, but that doesn’t mean everything’s peachy and perfect yet, or again, or that it ever even was. We are in this together… apart, but you’ve got a friend on the other end of this screen, promise.
If you’re heading to a barbecue or some other party today, great! (Hope you’re vaccinated. 😅) If you are still not feeling ready to head out into social functions and big gatherings and working through the messiness of those feelings — cool. That’s fine! (And might I suggest playing the new Olivia Rodrigo album while you do it?) We’ve all got our own timelines. I mean, we did before the pandemic, and that’s certainly not changed since.
If you find yourself with some down time this weekend, here are some good reads I thought I’d pass along:
Burnout: Modern Affliction of Human Condition (The New Yorker)
The Millennial Vernacular of Fatphobia (Culture Study)
The Aughts Seem Both Cooler and Sadder in Retrospect (The Atlantic)
But What About Health (Burnt Toast)
That’s it for me! Is it too early to trade this coffee for some rosè?
Sending you all the YAYs,
Joelle