Stressed Out (wake up you need to make money)

For a couple of months, I have wanted to write something for this blog, but I haven’t been able to find the words. I am entirely overwhelmed by the world right now, and on top of that, I feel as though I have no right to be overwhelmed. When I compare my life to the general state of the world, there’s no contest. I am comfortable and healthy, and so is my family.

Of course, invalidating my own experiences is completely unhelpful, but being aware of this only adds to feelings of overwhelm and impostor.

I suspect that this is a feeling that a lot of people can relate with right now. Times are tough all around. I can’t even imagine being an essential working, especially in grocery stores, hospitals, and nursing homes. The workload, the fear, the exhaustion. I have enough of that, and my day-to-day hasn’t really changed at all.

I’m a stay-at-home-parent, which we all know is a tough job in and of itself, but it also means that when the stay-at-home orders came rolling in, I just sort of shrugged. I was already here. I also don’t drive and I live in a city with, basically, no public transit, so it’s not like I went anywhere anyways.

Truly, I never thought I would miss SEPTA, but even late / broken down public transit is better than the “there’s three buses that make three stops each, that’s enough right?” transit of Fort Wayne. Poor, sad Fort Wayne— you know you’re a big city, right? you know that means you should act like it, right? you need public transit, you need sidewalks, you need to stop driving like farmers.

Well, some of my day-to-day changed. As the work hours and situations changed for the family I live with, so my routine had to change as well. Though, in all honesty, my stressed mental health is what caused my routine to break-down, not the people who were here when they normally weren’t. I couldn’t focus on what I normally did. Every time I tried, I started falling apart. I played a lot of Stardew Valley at the beginning of this pandemic.

Things are getting a little easier in some ways. Meal planning was impossible at the beginning of this, because there was no telling what food was available and what wasn’t. But there’s less panic now, so there’s more food. Also, I have toilet paper and baby wipes again, and I was dangerously low on both there for a minute.

But, on the other hand, things are getting worse.

As people get more and more fed up with the restrictions, as things open up again, as people refuse to social distance, wear face masks, be responsible and reasonable, my panic rises again.

I get it, I really do. I’m sick of this too. I miss going out too. I want to go on a date with my partner. I want to go to Marshall’s with my mom. I want to spend an afternoon in a park with my family. I want to order mediocre wine at a beer brewery because I don’t like beer but I do want to hang out with people. I want all of that. I know you do too.

But I want public safety far more than I want to get my nails done. I think about all of the people in my life who are at high risk, all of the people who are essential workers putting themself and their families at risk already, all of the medical supplies that need to be stretched to last as long as possible and how the entire system would crumble if we all got sick at the same time.

Of course, it’s not much of a system anyways, but, god damn, this is not how I want it to go out.

And then I think about those people protesting the social distancing restrictions. Those people who stand on government property, waving rifles and shotguns in the air, cursing the governors. And I think about how they are allowed to do that. They are allowed to break the stay-at-home orders. They are allowed to be armed on public property. They are allowed to wave guns in the air in the name of their freedom—their freedom to spread a deadly virus for the sake of haircuts, restaurants, bars, churches.

Those people who are acting in violence, ignorance, selfishness for their right to put my family and friends at even a higher risk.

And please, for the love of god, do not give me that bullshit about, “well you can stay home if you’re afraid!” Because we all know that’s not the case.

If you go out and get infected, then you go to your job. Let’s say you work in the same factory my dad does, where he is essential. Now my dad brings it home. Or maybe, you force restaurants to reopen, and my partner is forced to choose between losing their job or working in public. Maybe when my dad brought it home, Tyler then spread it to everyone in the restaurant—all unknowingly because you can be contagious and asymptomatic at the same time.

The entire point of social distancing is that we all have to do it, or it doesn’t work.

Please, be bored to save lives. All you have to do to be a superhero is nothing.

After my first burst of anger at the though of the people who are protesting because of their stupidity and selfishness, I get a second burst about them.

Why are these people allowed to stand on government property threatening the governor while waving guns in the air? Why is that okay? Why is the article right below the article about their protests about a black man being hunted and lynched? Why do I have to sign petitions to get murderers arrested, murderers who were caught on tape? Why is Ahmaud Arbery dead? Why is Breonna Taylor dead? Why is Kenneth Ross Jr dead?

Why are unarmed people of color being murdered at the same time that armed white people are threatening to shoot public officials? How can you be upset at the system for telling you to wear a face mask or not getting your haircut when the same system is murdering people? Even if there wasn’t a global pandemic going on, is that really the infraction of freedoms that you’re upset about? Is that the hill you want to die on?

I suppose this is adding to why I feel like I don’t have a right to be overwhelmed. At least I know that my family won’t be hunted down by men with shotguns if they go jogging—and not just because there’s no one in my family who would ever jog. My white privilege has wrapped me in a blanket of safety and security. Even a global crisis won’t completely ruin my family; as long as the virus doesn’t kill us all, we’re likely to make it through it okay.

And this knowledge does not alleviate my stress or my fear. I am still scared for my family and friends, I am still overwhelmed by everything, I still have to avoid all news articles, and I am still so, so, so incredibly angry.

How dare the people in power tell me this is fake? this is a democratic conspiracy? this is being handled well? How dare other people put my family at risk? How dare you be angry at the wrong thing? How dare I feel shitty when other people have it shittier? How dare mental health suck ass?

More than I want the pandemic to be over, I want this to be an opportunity for things to change. We are seeing, right now, how bad our health care system and social safety nets are, and why we need them to be so much better. We need universal healthcare, we need insurance to not be linked to employment, we need employment to not be linked to staying alive, to having a home, to getting food.

This could be an opportunity to fix our broken system, or at least improve it.

I don’t want to go back to normal.

Normal is not having health insurance. Normal is missing a paycheck and losing your home. Normal is having to choose between rent, food, childcare. Normal is working a job that won’t pay you enough to live for the rest of your life, which is not likely to be very long. Normal is struggling. Normal is people of color being murdered while the white murderers walk free. Normal is hopelessness and depression and a system designed to keep the people on top on top and the people on bottom on bottom.

If you can say that you want to go back to normal, what you’re really saying is that you were so privileged you didn’t see how fucked up the system was until a global crisis made you have to cancel your hair appointment. 5 million people had to get sick before you started getting angry at the system. How many more have to die before you’re willing to change it?

I don’t want normal.

I want better.

If I am going to give myself stomach ulcers from anxiety (again), I want it to be worth it. I also want to go to the doctor without going in (more) debt. Damn, what if mental healthcare was covered too? Maybe I would stop giving myself stomach ulcers! What a world that would be.

I’m not really angry at you, the person reading this. I’m just angry. And scared. And my stomach hurts.

Stay at home, friends. Wear a mask in public. Wash your hands. Social distance as much as possible. Vote by mail, sign petitions, speak up.

“Your silence will not protect you.” — Audre Lorde

Or, as my brother said, “It is the year of our lord two-thousand and twenty, we cannot stay silent.”