This time last year, I don’t believe I had ever heard the phrase “pandemic fatigue.” Now it’s in headlines everywhere I look and I feel it in the marrow of my bones.

Pandemics are exhausting.

Before the pandemic, Nathan was not a napper. Now he almost never misses his afternoon siesta. I have gone from needing eight hours of sleep and bouncing out of bed at 6 a.m. to needing nine hours of sleep and still feeling weary when 7 a.m. comes around.

I am in the midst of a slump. Last week, I had lots of vibrant sparkling energy. But then Saturday morning, I woke up feeling utterly exhausted. Now it’s Monday and I still feel drained.

When I had postpartum depression, I often experienced a fatigue that felt as if gravity was pulling extra hard on my bones and muscles. Fatigue is now one of my depression red flags. I have been on high alert since Saturday morning and trying to ascertain whether I am in the depression zone of fatigue. After a mental health inventory, I have concluded that I am not. My mental health is chugging along merrily. My exhaustion comes from a very understandable case of pandemic fatigue.

The difference between “pandemic fatigue” and “depression fatigue” is important, so I’m going to try to be a little more precise with my experience.

When I had postpartum depression, I lost my zest for life. It was not so much that I felt too tired to do things; it was that I completely forgot about all the things I enjoy doing. I was listless, dull and apathetic. I forced myself to smile and laugh. I was disengaged from life. I was disengaged from myself.

Right now, I am tired but I have not lost my zest for life. On Saturday, I sat on the couch and looked through a bunch of library cookbooks, plotting all the recipes I want to try. Then I listened to audiobooks and worked on a punch needle project. On Sunday, despite my exhaustion, I still went out and bought a new armchair because our trusty old armchair is about to turn into a pile of ash. I am tired, but I still want to do things.

And here’s the big difference between pandemic fatigue and depression fatigue: I am writing. When I was depressed, I forgot that writing is my divine call. But I have not stopped writing during this pandemic. So long as I am writing, I know that I am not depressed.

I am just very, very, very tired of this effing pandemic.

I hate to quote a book that I have not read yet, but I just have to share something today. Here is the quote:

We are not here to fit in, be well balanced, or provide exempla for others. We are here to be eccentric, different, perhaps strange, perhaps merely to add our small piece, our little clunky, chunky selves, to the great mosaic of being. As the gods intended, we are here to become more and more ourselves.

James Hollis, What Matters Most: Living A More Considered Life.

I was listening to Dare to Lead by Brene Brown on my morning walk today when she read this quote and I immediately stopped walking and googled the quote so I could take a picture and save it. Then I added Hollis’ book to my Want To Read list on Goodreads.

I add more books to my Want To Read list than I can ever read. But damn, I have to read something by James Hollis immediately if not sooner. The word “eccentric” is really resonating with me today!

I am a total amateur when it comes to feelings. Most of my life, I have done my best to suppress my feelings. I buried my feelings with food. I am working now to build a healthier relationship with my feelings. I’m not exactly sure what that will look like. I’m an amateur here! But I am ready and excited to do this work.

I started using the Noom app last February to develop a healthier relationship with food. The Noom app has a lot of excellent lessons about feelings. I have learned a lot.

Wanting to dive even deeper into my feelings work, I recently listened to the audiobook for Permission to Feel by Marc Brackett. I learned a lot and will probably eventually read the hardback version that I bought last summer. (Alas, these days, I just don’t have the time or bandwidth for actual reading. Thank god for audiobooks!)

This is what I have learned so far about feelings and beliefs:

• I am not alone in being a feelings amateur. Humans are feelings machines that think, but alas, most of us have been taught to devalue our feelings.
• My feelings are not automatically good or bad.
• My feelings are messengers with calls to action.
• My feelings alert me to my beliefs.
• I don’t want to label my feelings, but I’m happy to label my beliefs. As I pay attention to my feelings, I am learning that I have a lot of toxic beliefs.
• I intend to do a lot more writing and talking about my toxic beliefs. I went to Catholic school for twelve years and I can’t tell you how many times we learned about Eve eating the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. Women have been blamed for the sins of humanity for thousands of years. It’s bullshit, but it’s going to take some hard work to eradicate that shit from my subconscious.
• I do not want to go through life weighed down by beliefs that I did not consciously choose. My feelings are an awesome tool to help me find the beliefs I do not want to keep.

I have been suppressing my feelings for so long, I do it automatically. I have to work at actually noticing my feelings before I suppress them. This will take time and patience. It’s going to be messy and awkward. But this is work I want to do.

Pippa has been in a pod with two boys from her second grade class since the beginning of the school year. We meet at one family’s host because they have the perfect setup: a lanai, which is half-room, half-porch, and a babysitter who supervises the kids. This means I do not have to hover over Pippa for every minute of distance learning, which has been a godsend to us both.

At the end of Thanksgiving week, we learned that someone connected to Julian’s preschool class had tested positive for Covid-19. Out of an abundance of caution, pod went on hiatus for the rest of 2020.

In January, Pasadena had a Covid-19 surge. Our pod hosts were not comfortable bringing back pod — which I totally get and respect — so for the month of January, Pippa was stuck at home with her boring parents for distance learning.

It was soul-crushing for all parties involved, but I was most concerned about Pippa. My girl loves to be around other kids and day after day, she watched her brother skip off to preschool while she booted up her Chromebook. One morning, she told me, “I wish I wasn’t alive.”

Our hosts were still not ready to restart pod, but I knew Pippa had reached her breaking point. I asked the other pod mom, Hey, do you want to bring your son here next week for mini-pod? She enthusiastically accepted. (And she would have hosted herself, but she lives with her parents, and her mom has some health issues.)

For two days last week, we hosted bi-pod. On Wednesday, Pippa’s friend arrived and they were immediately bouncing off the walls with energy. Within seconds, Pippa’s inner light was brighter than ever. On Thursday, her friend came again for our class Valentine’s Day celebrations and they played Bingo and opened cards together. My heart was very, very full.

Then our host family announced they were ready to resume pod. HALLELUJAH! Yesterday, after a restorative four-day weekend, Pippa returned to pod. The kids picked up right where they had been last November in their elaborate make believe game they have been playing since August. My daughter is happy again.

Pippa still can’t wait to return to school, but for now, her pod is giving her mental health a very necessary boost. I am going to do everything in my powers throughout this ordeal to keep her connected with kids her age.

Yesterday, I finished listening to the audiobook for Permission to Feel. I learned a lot, and I will probably listen to it again in a few years. As I was finishing up the book, I caught myself thinking, I have screwed up on the feelings front with my kids so many times. And I still have so much to learn. Blerg! I wish I had become a Feelings Master before I had kids!

Then I remembered: my kids are entitled to my mistakes.

My kids will have “issues.” Everyone does. I believe we are all born with “work” we need to do during this lifetime, and the work of becoming our best selves is part of what makes life so fulfilling and magical. I love doing my work. On my best days, I know I will be working to be my best self until the day I die.

Who am I to rob my kids of the work that gives me so much joy and fulfillment?

Now, I am not giving myself a blank check to be an abusive monster. I want to work to be my best self, but even my best self is going to fuck shit up and that is okay. In fact, it’s better than okay: it’s beautiful. I don’t have to be perfect for my kids. I didn’t need to finish all my self-work before I became a mom, because that’s an impossible hurdle. I just have to keep working to be my best self and allow myself to make mistakes and messes.

My kids have a right to do their own work to become their own best selves.

My kids are entitled to my mistakes.

Holy shit, Pippa has a four day weekend thanks to Lincoln’s Birthday and President’s Day AND I AM UTTERLY DELIGHTED.

Even better: Julian has preschool tomorrow morning, so while he is at school, Pippa and I will celebrate the birth of our sixteenth president by watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

This time last year, I would have been annoyed by the four day weekend. What? My kids are home for four whole days in a row? Have you no mercy? But now, thanks to the horrors of distance learning, I am backflipping over each and every excuse to miss school.

Have a fun long weekend! See you next week!

Ten days ago, I wrote:

I barely have a craving for soda anymore, and when I do, my immediate reaction is, Blech, then I’d lose my streak. 

Me, This Blog Post.

But today, I am having some deep cravings for Caffeine Free Diet Coke. And the thought of losing my “days without soda” streak is not very compelling. Instead, I keep thinking about how delicious a bubbly soda would taste, streak be damned.

Nathan still drinks soda but he goes for the full caffeinated experience. I do not covet his stash of diet soda because I know caffeine makes me crazy. But yesterday he was drinking Caffeine Free Diet Coke because he accidentally grabbed a bottle of it at the store, and oh, I wanted to tear that bottle from his arms and guzzle it down.

It feels like my inner devil is shouting for soda and my inner angel is secretly craving it as well.

Hopefully, if I can hang on for a few more days, these cravings will pass. Come on, inner angel! Please! Kick that devil in the ass and get excited about the 2021 Soda Fast!

I will report back either way.

p.s. Pray for me.

I have been thinking about my mental health a lot lately. I have a lot of mental health tools that boost my mental health, like meditation, exercise, writing, and Zoloft. I have been relying on these tools heavily since the first lockdown in Pasadena in March 2020.

But just how long can those tools keep me afloat?

I have started thinking of my mental health as a sort of rowboat that carries me through the adventure that is life. Let’s call it the S.S. Mental Health.

The boat represents the foundation of my mental health. It is made of my absolute essentials like community, time alone to write, and going out into the world for new experiences. This time a year ago, my little vessel was in good shape.

Then came the pandemic.

After a month of lockdown, my vessel had sprung a leak. But I could handle a leak! I could meditate! And have dance parties with my kids! And talk to my therapist!

But things dragged on. I could plug the leak with a few psych tricks, but I had to reach shore eventually to repair my poor boat. There was, alas, no shore in sight.

Forget a few leaks. Distance learning capsized my mental health boat and pitched me into the angry sea.

Which brings me to the present day.

Folks, I am trying my best but lately, I feel like I am surfing a log on a tsunami during the Apocalypse. How can I rely on a few psych tricks like journaling and texting with friends to patch up my mental health when I don’t even have a damn boat?

And yet, I am still surfing that log. I have a supportive husband, good friends, and a house in a great neighborhood. I manage to find a couple of hours for writing, even if I get interrupted a hundred times by my kids. I have Zoloft and the last season of Schitt’s Creek on standby.

I can stay on this log. I have been training for this shit since I was first diagnosed with postpartum depression in July 2013. This sucks. This is tough. But I can hang on to the log.

If you feel like you are drowning in anxiety and depression and other mental health woes, you are not alone. Mental health tricks are not always enough to keep the boat afloat when the sea has gone bat shit crazy. Please take care of yourself. Please do not beat yourself up if you need some extra tender care during these crazy AF times. I am rooting for all of you even as I hustle to keep my balance on the shitty log that used to be my mental health boat.

Feelings are not, shall we say, my strong suit. When I was nineteen years old and a freshman in college, my cousin Kym died. It was a sudden and unexpected death. I remember that first rush of grief as my parents told me by phone and my sudden tears. And then I remember trying to suppress my grief and tears so I did not embarrass myself in front of my roommates.

For most of my life, I did everything I could to suppress negative feelings. Loneliness? Bury it. Anger? Bury it. Sadness? Bury that shit. More often than not, I used food to keep my feelings in check.

I am working now to build my emotional intelligence. I want to get naked with my feelings and welcome all of them into my life.

Step One: I have to forgive myself for suppressing my feelings for so many years.

Step Two: I have to realize there is nothing to forgive. I was just doing my best to get by in a society that too often sees feelings as a sign of weakness.

The Noom app is helping with this. I am currently working my way through a bunch of lessons about emotions.

But I want to go even deeper in this work, so I am currently reading Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves And Our Society Thrive by Mark Brackett. Brackett was a guest on Brene Brown’s podcast Unlocking Us and I immediately ordered the hardback version of his book after listening to his conversation with Brene. But then distance learning started, and my brain’s available bandwidth plummeted, and I could not handle reading a nonfiction book about my emotions.

Last week, I finally bought the audio version and started listening. I am so grateful I did.

When it comes to emotions, I feel like an idiot. But the concept of emotional intelligence was not introduced to the scientific literature until 1990! Emotional intelligence is a relatively new concept. I am not at all late to the feelings party.

Brackett’s goal is to teach the reader to be an emotions scientist. Humans have evolved to be emotions scientists. Emotions are one of the things that make us so very human. But there are skills we need to learn in order to be an emotions scientist, and most of us have not had the opportunity to learn those skills.

This is my work: to learn the skills I need to become an emotions scientist.

I have started a new project that is separate from my 2021 projects. I am going to read a book written by an author from every country in the world! There are, at present count, 196 countries in the world, so there is no way I am going to finish this project in 2021 (or 2022) (or 2023!) But I thought this would be a fun way to “travel” the world – especially now, when travel is limited by the pandemic.

I am going to do this alphabetically to give my project a little more structure. I started a few days ago with The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini for Afghanistan. This book has been on my Want To Read book for years, so it is an excellent way to kick off my Around The World With Books! project.

I am listening to the audiobook. Finding audiobooks will be the trickiest part of this project. Well, actually finding books that have been translated into English from more “obscure” countries will be the trickiest part of this project. There are some TINY countries in the world. Will I be able to find a book by an author from Kiribati? Or Cabo Verde? What about Lichtenstein?

But once I find a book that I want to read from a particular country, then I will listen to the audio version if it’s available. I am doing most of my reading that way these days. But the pandemic and distance learning will eventually end, and I’ll get my brain back, and I’ll be able to read good old fashioned paperbacks again someday. (Right?)

I am not going to worry about Albania-Zimbabwe. One country, one book at a time. Right now, I am enjoying my literary trip to Afghanistan. By the end of this decade, I will have traveled the world without ever boarding an airplane or packing a suitcase.