I love self-care. I believe it is a necessary and vital part of our lives.

BUT: I also worry that self-care gets presented to women as a sort of panacea that will cure all their problems. Feeling down? Buy a scented candle. Feeling unfulfilled and dissatisfied with your life? Take a bubble bath!

This is the dangerous self-care myth: if I practice self-care, I’ll be happy. I’ll feel great. All my problems will go away.

But self-care does not always address deeper soul needs.

I was introduced to the idea of self-care when I was recovering from postpartum depression. My psychiatrist kept nagging me to practice self-care. My loved ones kept urging me to take time for myself. I also read a lot of books about PPD, and those books urged me to practice self-care.

But what the hell did that mean?

At first, I thought of self-care in terms of pedicures and bubble baths. A week after I was discharged from the hospital for psychiatric care, I got a massage. That was relaxing and good but … I felt kind of hollow. So the next day, I got a pedicure. That was also nice and relaxing, but still… I had a hollow feeling.

I was also coloring in the evenings. I had started coloring at the hospital as part of “occupational therapy.” Nathan saw how making art lit me up, so he bought me crayons and coloring books. I had also started journaling again. Slowly, I started to realize that writing and making art helped me feel good. Massages and pedicures were relaxing, but for me, writing and making art were the priority.

I do not want to disparage things like massages and pedicures. I love me a good spa day. In fact, when the pandemic is over, I can’t wait to go to my favorite spa (I hope it is still open!) and get a scrub. Things like bubble baths and spa days definitely count as self-care. It’s just for me, when I only have a little time for self-care, I get more value from taking time to write and make art. For everyone, self-care going to look a little different. You have to do what works for you. Not what works for me, or your sister, or your best friend. YOU.

I think self-care is amazing and important BUT as I was recovering from PPD and reading about self-care, I started to internalize a dangerous message: if I took an hour every week, or twenty minutes every day, just for myself, then I would be fine.

Let’s take a little flashback to my lawyer days, shall we? I graduated from law school in 2004 and practiced law until January 2013. When I was a lawyer, I was MISERABLE. I was never called to be a lawyer. I went to law school because I was terrified of following my calling to be a writer. I worked as a lawyer at big law firms with a big salary because I had this idea that my value depended on how much money I made and how much prestige my job carried.

But hey, when I was a lawyer, I self-cared the shit out of myself. Expensive spa days. Journaling in the morning. I went on trips. Bought myself expensive purses that I didn’t really like. I got facials. I got my hair done. I exercised. I knitted. I did all the self-care! But did that help?

HELL NO.

I was still a miserable lawyer because I was denying my inner call to be a writer and pursuing a career that shredded my soul. I used to tell people that when I got off the elevator at work, I switched into lawyer mode. And when I left, I could switch back to Courtney. This felt a little bad ass. But it was crushing my spirit, and there was no amount of self-care that could make me feel better. I might as well have put a bandaid on an amputated limb.

Self-care is necessary. Relaxation is vital. But self-care has to be done in conjunction with being your authentic self. You cannot avoid your inner divine call by taking a bubble bath. You cannot avoid the work that you are meant to be doing in this lifetime by getting a facial.

This is not easy. We are born with our true inner calling and the work we need to do. But then life piles on and separates us from our call. Society convinces us that we are not good enough, not pretty enough, not thin enough. That we need to fit in, follow the rules, be a good girl, and act like everyone else or we’ll be rejected and cast out from the herd. We are told that we cannot be trusted, that we are not lovable, and that we should be happy with a bubble bath and glass of wine.

We have been told that a scented candle is enough to cancel out the fact that our spirits have been crushed.

Let me tell you about scented candles. When I was a miserable lawyer, I bought myself a $40 candle. It did not make me feel good about myself. It just made me feel like an idiot for buying a $40 candle BECAUSE I DON’T EVEN LIKE SCENTED CANDLES!

I can’t tell you what your inner call is. I can’t tell you what work you are meant to do in this lifetime. I can’t tell you who your authentic self is. But I can tell you this: your inner call is worthy; your authentic self is awesome; your work and your voice and your ideas are important.

If you are struggling to figure out what your divine call is, I suggest thinking about your younger self. What did you feel called to do as a kid? What juiced you up? What did you feel compelled to do? What did you love to do?I read somewhere to think of yourself when you were twelve years old, but I prefer thinking of myself as even younger. Because I don’t know about you, but by the time I was twelve, I was already fairly messed up by society and other peoples’ expectations and opinions.

The idea of self-care as a panacea for all ills is dangerous to women. It makes us think that all we need to do to have a happy life is get pedicures and maybe color for fifteen minutes at the end of the day. The self-care myth is telling us to drown our inner call with a bubble bath.

Self-care is necessary and vital and wonderful. But if your soul feels crushed because you are smothering your inner divine call, self-care is not going to fix that. The self-care myth perpetuates the idea that you just need fifteen minutes a day to feel like yourself, but you deserve to feel like your best self all day, every day. That doesn’t mean you won’t sometimes feel uncomfortable or sad or angry. That’s life. But you can feel uncomfortable or sad or angry and still feel like yourself. That is what you deserve. You deserve to practice self-care AND feel like your best damn self in all aspects of your life.

Well, I have to hand it to 2020. It is doing a first-rate job of teaching me that life is uncertain and the only thing I can control is my mindset.

We had found our Pandemic School Year groove. Julian was back at preschool and loving it. Pippa had started meeting with a pod of two other friends and loving school again. Everything seemed to be humming along.

Then the Bobcat Fire started.

The Bobcat Fire is one of the wildfires currently raging in California. It is in the San Gabriel Mountains just a few miles from our house. Our air reeks of smoke. Ash is everywhere. I can’t take the kids outside to play. We can’t go swimming in our pool or take a walk and just running errands feels like too much.

I will never take the air I breathe for granted again.

Preschool is even closer to the wildfire than our house. Last Thursday and Friday, Julian was able to go to preschool but they had to stay in their classroom the entire time. Julian did not seem to mind this. But the air quality has worsened, so school is closed now. The plan is for the kids to return on Thursday, with new air filters running in the classrooms. We’ll see about that.

Pippa’s pod has also been suspended. There are just three kids in the pod. We have been meeting at a friend’s house that is very close to the wildfire. Their air quality is so bad, they had to move in with a grandparent who lives farther away. So our sweet little second grade pod has been suspended until the wildfire subsides.

Man, this just sucks.

I’m actually in good spirits. I don’t know how, but I have somehow managed to surrender to this experience. It’s like things are so bad, I just can’t be bothered to be upset any more. The winds will blow as they blow. The fire will burn as it burns. The ash will fall where it falls. I can’t control any of it so I might as well enjoy the fact that I am alive and sharing these strange times with my family.

Still, this sucks and I feel better when I acknowledge that it sucks.

This! Sucks! So! Fucking! Much!

We were supposed to have a birthday party for Pippa in March right before the California shutdown. We finally rescheduled her birthday party for later this month. It is going to be a drive by, say hello, take a cupcake, simple affair. But now, it looks like we might have to reschedule that because of the wildfires!

Ah, geez. I can’t even get upset about that.

This week, I am back with more Jedi mind tricks for pandemic parenting. Because parenting is already tough, but add in a pandemic? Sweet Jesus, have mercy!

But first:

• My memoir, Adventures With My Forties, is free right now on Amazon! It is free until Saturday, September 12th. If you missed this round, don’t worry. I’ll make it free again in December. If you want to be alerted when the book is free, then …
• … sign up for my newsletter! I tried starting a newsletter a few years ago, and it didn’t work. It just felt too stiff and formal. I was trying to imitate the style of other newsletters. I was trying too hard to write what I thought people wanted to read instead of writing what I wanted to write. Then I became a Room Parent for Pippa’s kindergarten class and discovered that “stiff and formal” is not my style. I started writing class emails that were slightly unhinged and it was so much fun. I am much more “zany and deranged”! So that is what I am going to try to do with my new newsletter. I hope to have fun and be my authentic self.
• And in case you are curious, the fire I mentioned is the Bobcat Fire, currently at 24,000 acres and 0% containment. It is currently burning away from Pasadena, so fingers crossed! My thoughts and prayers are with the firefighters.

All right, and now, as promised, my second round of Pandemic Parenting Jedi Mind Tricks:

• You can only change yourself. If you are not happy with something about your kid’s behavior, you have to change your behavior. This goes back to modeling, instead of lecturing. For example, if Pippa talks rudely to me, and I give her an angry lecture, I’ve just demonstrated that rudeness is an effective tool for communication. If I say nicely, “I don’t like the way you are talking to me and if you continue that, I’ll have to send you to time out,” then I am changing myself and teaching Pippa a more effective way to communicate.
• You can only save yourself. This is some scary ass shit. By saving yourself, and doing deeper work on yourself, you are lighting the way for your children. But they will fuck up and make mistakes and sometimes be assholes and that’s okay. They have their own journey with their own adventures. They have their own work to do during this lifetime. I’m not saying abandon them. Love them! Nurture them! But realize that it’s your job to save yourself and do YOUR work. You can’t short circuit their work.  
• Are your expectations for your child reasonable? Like are they at the age when they can handle distance learning on their own? Or are you setting them up for failure with your expectations?
• You can’t control life but you can control your mindset. That doesn’t mean the glass needs to be half full. Lately, it feels like 2020 took a huge shit in the glass. Half full or half empty, the water is contaminated. So when I mention “controlling your mindset,” I am not advocating denial. But agonizing over things out of our control? That just increases unnecessary suffering.
• Sometimes, it helps me to think, if I was the child in this situation, how would I want to be parented?
• Or I flip that thinking and wonder, if my kids were the parent in this situation, what would I want for them?
• Fuck screen time rules.
• Flexibility, flexibility, I can’t touch my toes but when it comes to parenting, I try to be flexible. .
• You don’t need anyone else’s approval about the way you are raising your kids. You don’t need the approval of your parents, your in-laws, your friends, your kids’ teachers, your kids’ principal, or any so-called parenting experts.
• Have compassion for yourself and your kids. Everything feels better with compassion. This is something I am working toward and I forget compassion All. The. Time.
• What works changes. I forgot to mention this on the podcast! But I want to include it here. Remember babies? Babies change all the time. Just when you get a good groove going, nap time changes, eating habits change, teething kicks in and destroys everything… Well, what works during the pandemic also changes. Sometimes by the hour.
• Pay attention and be curious. Sometimes just noticing a problem is the solution. I used to yell all the time at my kids. It made me feel awful and they hated it. I thought I was going to need an elaborate solution to the yelling but just by noticing the problem, it gradually subsided.
• Stop judging other parents. When you judge other parents, you judge yourself.I
• It’s okay for your kid to get bored.
• Be authentic. If you are being yourself, parenting feels easier. Like for me, it means getting outside and doing crafts. But for you, it’s probably something different.
• Be intentional and conscious.
• The work is the reward! It’s not the praise or accolades and it’s not money, because god knows we are not being paid for this gig. But the work. You are entitled to the work. Not the glory or fame or honor or prestige. Just the work.

Under the best of circumstances, parenting is tough. Add in a pandemic and some distance learning? Holy sh*t. At the beginning of the pandemic, I wished there was a “Guide to Parenting During A Historic Pandemic” that would help me navigate these stormy times. But the more I reflect on it, the more I realize that the parenting principles that helped me stay sane pre-pandemic also help me stay sane in 2020. In this episode, which is Part 1 of 2, I dive into the principles that are guiding my adventures with pandemic parenting. 

These are the parenting principles I discussed this week:

• Don’t compare your kid to other kids. Kids are people and people are unique. When I fall into the comparison trap, I always compare my kids tougher traits to another kid’s “easier” traits. I don’t compare the way my kids are awesome to other kids. Don’t beat yourself up about this. It is a common human tendency to dwell on the negative.
• On the same note, don’t compare yourself to other parents. We all have different superpowers, different issues, different ways of coping, different life experiences, and different present circumstances. Your style of parenting is going to be as unique as you and your kids are.
• Modeling works better than lecturing. Show, don’t tell.
• You’re not alone. This pandemic is tough for just about 100% of parents.
• Honor your intuition. I talk about intuition in Episode 8. You have to trust yourself and what works for you and your kids and your family during these unprecedented times!
• Follow your kids’ lead. They are less messed up by society, marketing, and the patriarchy than we are. They know what they need.
• But honor your boundaries. You don’t have to sit with a child in your lap in a way that’s uncomfortable just because that is how you child wants to snuggle. You don’t have to play make believe for hours on end just because that is what your child wants. If you always give in to what your child wants, how will they learn how to treat other people? How to endure boredom?
• YOU WILL MAKE MISTAKES! My kids are entitled to my mistakes. If I’m perfect, holy shit, that is setting an impossibly high standard for them.
• The obstacle is the way.
• Don’t take things personally.
• Abundance, over scarcity.
• Shame needs secrecy. So if something during this experience is making you feel shame, share that shit. Are you yelling more? Share with your friends. Are you allowing all the screen time? Share that shit as well!

And I’ll be sharing more helpful parenting principles soon in Episode 11!

I made a comic strip! The idea for this comic has been rattling around my head for about two years, but I kept pushing the idea away. I told myself, I’m not an artist, people will think it is lame. But I did it and damn, it felt good to make.

I posted it the other day on Instagram and thought, People are going to love this! I got four likes. Okaaaaaaaaaay, not quite the response I was hoping for, but you know what? The work is the reward. Making the comic strip was so fun and cathartic, it does not matter if other people liked it or not. What’s important is that my inner call kept shouting at me to make the comic and I finally answered.

I’m really proud of this comic and will definitely be making more. I have some ideas that are not related to breastfeeding, but I’m going to focus on breastfeeding for now. It’s an issue that needs more attention. A lot of moms are suffering in silence because they think they have somehow failed their baby because, for whatever reason, they are not exclusively breastfeeding. The “breast is best” slogan definitely aggravated my postpartum depression. I know a lot of moms who felt demoralized because of the pressure to breastfeed.

I’m sick of staying silent on this subject because I might insult some moms who breastfeed. The “breast is best” slogan is toxic. I don’t care if it rhymes. A fed baby and happy mama should be the goal. If that means breastfeeding, fantastic. But if it means a bottle and formula, that is just as fantastic.

I made this comic with Instagram in mind, so I did not include borders. Next time, I will! It’s a learning process, folks. If you prefer the original IG post, it is right here. Okay, here is my comic baby:

To be continued …

I know, I know, I am stating the obvious here. But I think the difficulty of this situation is something we all need to acknowledge from time to time.

Last weekend, I was grumpy. I just felt utterly and completely drained. I saw some mom friends at the park during a playdate and vented. My friend Katie looked me in the eyes and said, “This is hard. This is really, really hard.” Again, so obvious, but damn, I needed to hear someone say that and validate it for me.

So that’s what I want to say to everyone: this is really, really hard. There are not enough swear words in the English language to describe how hard this is!

My therapist has told me many times that she believes the pandemic is a traumatic experience. That resonates with me – but what are we supposed to do with a traumatic experience? I guess I’ll have to reflect on that in the months ahead…

There are many things that are difficult about the 2020 pandemic, but here are a few that I talked about during Episode 9:

• We don’t have a handbook for this. We are living history! There have been pandemics before, but never like this one, with social media and international travel and a 24/7 news cycle.
• It feels endless.
• There are so many ups and downs. Just when I think I have processed my pandemic feelings, new feelings pop up and down I go again…
• The isolation.
• The boredom.
• The grief. So many layers of grief for so many different things.
• The loss of momentum! Here in Pasadena, the pandemic just stopped life in March. It’s hard to get back into the groove of doing things.
• Sensory overload. The pandemic is just too big for my brain to process.
• Helplessness.
• Loss of control over our lives.

And despite all these difficulties, regular life with regular life problems marches on.

How will we heal from the pandemic? When will we heal? Can the healing even start when the pandemic is ongoing? Can we have catharsis? Is there an ongoing healing that we can seek? Where we heal and keep breaking and ripping and falling apart and healing again?

I feel so raw and transparent and fragile and tender and also I feel grateful and joyful and filled with grace and then angry and frustrated. It is so much.

I will keep paying attention to my experience with the pandemic and stay curious about my feelings and thoughts. I know I can get through this. But damn, it is really, really hard.

When I started thinking about this episode, I thought it would be helpful to have a definition of “intuition.” The word can be a bit woo-woo and mysterious. I decided to start with the dictionary.

According to the folks at Dictionary.com, “intuition” means “1. direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process…”

My intuition immediately objected, so I decided to see if Brené Brown has any thoughts on intuition. She does! According to Brené Brown:

Intuition is not a single way of knowing – it’s our ability to hold space for uncertainty and our willingness to trust the many ways we’ve developed knowledge and insight, including instinct, experience, faith and reason.”

Brené Brown

Yes! That feels more like my understanding of intuition. Then I found this great quote from Einstein:

I believe in intuitions and inspirations…I sometimes FEEL that I am right. I do not KNOW that I am.

Albert Einstein

Double yes! Sometimes I know something, but I cannot tell you why I know it. I just know that I know something and it is right. That is my intuition.

Sometimes intuition feels like ancient wisdom, as if I am drawing upon something that one of my ancestors learned. Other times intuition feels like my connection to the divine. Still other times, it just feels like my gut is able to process a quick answer far faster than my brain by relying on all my experiences, feelings and knowledge.

Intuition is a deep inner knowing. It is soul knowledge. It often feels magical.

I believe everyone is born with intuition and we never actually lose it, but our intuition often gets buried and obscured by modern living. But it is still there! The connection can always be reclaimed and strengthened.

I started reconnecting with my intuition in 2013 after I had postpartum depression. When Pippa was a baby, she did not like napping in her crib. I could get her to take really long naps if I held her in my arms or got her to fall asleep during a walk. But the Popular Majority disapproved and insisted that Pippa nap in her crib. (The Popular Majority consisted of my husband, my parents, a doula who helped during my recovery, my psychiatrist at the time, various friends, and assorted parenting experts.) The Popular Majority insisted that my mental health depended on me getting Pippa to nap in her crib.

My intuition, though, knew that crib naps were just not for Pippa.

But I wanted to make the Popular Majority happy so I tried. A doula taught me a method to get Pippa to nap in her crib. It involved lots of rocking and hushing and putting Pippa down and scooping her back up the moment she fussed. It sometimes took forty-five minutes to get Pippa to finally nap in her crib. Then she would only nap for twenty or thirty minutes. But if I held her in my arms or pushed her in the stroller, she napped for two or three hours! With no fuss!

Still, I kept trying to please the Popular Majority.

Until one glorious day… I was at the mall. I was rushing to leave so I could get home in time to put Pippa down for a crib nap. I felt stressed by the whole situation and was agonizing over the stupid nap time rituals that just made my baby wail.

So I thought, Fuck it.

The crib naps were not working for me or Pippa. I pushed her around the mall and let her fall asleep in her stroller and had a grand time shopping. After that, I let Pippa nap in the baby carrier, against my chest, or in her stroller. We were both so much happier and I felt deeply satisfied to be trusting my intuition.

Society does not want us connected to our intuition. Companies want us to feel insecure about our inner wisdom so we will buy their product, watch their show, read their magazine. The patriarchy is not really interested in our intuition, either, unless our intuition is telling us to stay in the kitchen and do all the housework like a good wife should.

Well, I am sick of marketers trying to separate me from my intuition, and I am tired of the patriarchy telling me what it means to be good.

After defying the Popular Majority and giving up on crib naps for Pippa, I felt an ache to paint. I stumbled upon Brave Intuitive Painting, by Flora Bowley. Somehow my intuition knew this was the book I needed. I started painting and it was a wonderful way to connect with my inner wisdom. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in getting messy with her intuition.

Flora turned me on to the idea of taking intuitive walks. When I leave the house on my daily walk, I never know which route I am taking. I let my feet and intuition decide. I always feel delighted when I get to a corner and my intuition tells me which way to go next.

I also reconnected with my intuition through journaling. I heard about this technique on an episode of the Elise Gets Crafty podcast but damned if I remember which interviewee talked about it. But the guest talked about asking her intuition a question, waiting for her intuition to respond and then writing the response. I adapted that technique in my own journaling practice.

If I have a specific question for my intuition, I write that question in print. Sometimes, I just write, How am I doing? or What areas of my life need attention?

Then I wait.

When my intuition responds, I wrote that response in cursive. Sometimes my intuition has pages and pages of things to say. Other times, it’s just a few sentences.

This was completely awkward and uncomfortable at first. I felt very self-conscious the first time I said Hello to my intuition. But this practice quickly became second nature. Now the responses from my intuition tend to arrive within a few seconds and I enter into a deep flow state as I converse with my inner wisdom.

I also love using the Tarot to connect with my intuition. I have the Universal Waite Tarot Deck. I would like to get two or three more decks so my intuition can not just pick a card, but pick the deck. But for now, I’m happy with the one deck I own.

When I am working with the Tarot, I write a question in my journal. Then I shuffle the deck, spread out the cards, and pull the one that feels right. I look at the card and write about it in my journal. I describe what I see and what feelings and thoughts arise. I write about why this card speaks to me – or why it doesn’t. Sometimes my intuition says, Nope, not this card, so I pull another.

There are lots of books that describe the meanings of the different cards. I don’t care about any of that. I’m just using the Tarot as another path to access my intuition. The images on my Tarot cards help me get into the intuition zone. Why? I don’t know. But my intuition guided me to this practice, and my intuition knows what it needs!

Meditation has also helped me strengthen my relationship with my intuition. When I meditate, I create space between my sense of self and my thoughts. The practice helps me distinguish between my inner wisdom and my busy monkey brain.

If you are looking to strengthen your connection with your intuition, you need to do what works for you. Trust your intuition. Trust your inner wisdom. I don’t care what anyone else has told you. You are already the teacher that you need.

1. Journaling. Bonus points if I start my day journaling before I get sucked into the Mom Vortex. That way, I feel more juiced up and ready for the extreme parenting of this Pandemic Season.

2. Meditation. I use the Calm App.

3. Long walks. Alone.

4. Texting with friends.

5. Talking to friends on the phone

6. Creating a memory box of pandemic life. I have been saving some magazines so one day, I can look back with my kids and reflect on this experience.

7. Getting as much fresh air as possible. We are in the midst of a brutal heat wave, so right now, “as much as possible” is very little. But when the heat dies down, we’ll be back out in nature.

8. Social distancing play dates with friends. Community builds immunity!

9. Audiobooks and podcasts.

10. Music that makes me want to dance.

11. Watching The Star Wars movies with my kids. We started with the original trilogy a few weeks ago.

12. Reading Harry Potter to my seven year old. We finished The Sorcerer’s Stone last week and started The Chamber of Secrets last night.

13. Strength training. I started doing this last week. I used to lift weights at the gym but have only been walking the past couple of years. Right now, I have two pound weights. Baby steps! I’m planning to hit the store for resistance bands very soon…

14. The Far Side. I just checked today’s cartoon and literally laughed out loud.

15. Stretching. It helps me relax.

16. Zoloft.

17. Talking to my therapist every two or three weeks. We talk over Facetime. It is not ideal, but it works.

18. Watching old movies with Nathan. We just finished The Gold Rush, a Charlie Chaplin silent film, that took me away from the pandemic.

19. Gardening. We planted cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and basil that are booming. We have four stalks of corn that are growing and one watermelon plant that is deciding whether it wants to wilt or thrive. We also have two pumpkin vines but no pumpkins yet. Right now, with the heat, all I can do is water the garden before running back inside. But when the heat dies down, I’m looking forward to more gardening with my kids.

20. Knitting. I do this at night while watching t.v. with Nathan.

21. But any crafting boosts my mood as well. I did perler beads with Pippa recently and made a rainbow out of rope and yarn. All very satisfying and soul-charging.

22. Reading poetry.

23. Making lists.

Our adventures with The Distance Learning Shit Show resumed today as Pippa started second grade. There is no finish line in sight, so I am going to have to work hard to keep my mental health in good shape. I think this is going to involve a very intentional balancing act.

On the one hand, this experience completely and absolutely sucks. For me and Pippa, distance learning is just not as good as “real” school. She loves school. She wants to see her friends and have some independence. And I love having her go to school! I need time alone so I can write and feel like an individual.

On the other hand, I do not want to wallow in self-pity and despair. We are still having fun! Pippa and I read the first Harry Potter book together, and I’m slowly introducing the kids to the Star Wars movies. We have done lots of swimming this summer and gone on some fun hikes. Life is good.

But then I think about the things we have lost. We did not go to Las Vegas for our annual trip with my extended family. We did not go to Nebraska to see Nathan’s family. My cousin’s October wedding was postponed until September 2021. And those are just the big things! We have also lost the indoor activities — movie theaters, bowling, the mall — that make hot summer days easier. I would kill to just sit inside an air conditioned Starbucks for an hour to write and daydream and people watch.

Yet these are precious years. Pippa is 7, Julian is 4, and they are so sweet and fun and relatively easy. Who knows what the future holds? I do not want to dwell on the things we have lost and miss out on the things we have.

Yet we have lost so much and we keep losing more.

I have to honor both the good feelings and the bad. It’s a balancing act. When I am feeling frustrated or sad or angry, I vent to Nathan or text friends. I write about it in my journal. I make a note to talk about it with my therapist. I let the feelings flow through me.

But once the negative feeling has had space to unfold, I let it go. I go back to gratitude and joy in the little things: the way Julian’s hair sticks out; Pippa’s latest art project; a particularly magnificent cloud.

This is a very imperfect art and it takes work. I often catch myself stewing in shitty annoyed feelings. Then I have to pause and consider. Is this how I really feel right now? Or am I just enjoying some unwarranted outrage because pandemic life is boring?

And I don’t always pause and consider. When I am sucked into a vortex of shitty emotions, it feels a bit self-righteous to linger there. Look at me! How I suffer! Like I said, this is an imperfect art.

Grace and self-compassion are going to be essential in the weeks (months?) ahead. I am going to wallow in shitty feelings. I am also going to eat too many potato chips to numb some other shitty feelings. I am going to beat myself up for being annoyed with distance learning. I am going to swing abruptly from grief to joy to annoyance to peace to frustration to contentment, and that might all happen in the space of five minutes.

But then, every now and then, there will be a moment of balance. I will make space for the grief and joy at the same time. In that moment, I will be aware of the challenges and blessings, and I will hold them both dear to my heart. My heart will ache and swell simultaneously. And as my heart beats with both joy and sorrow, gratitude and grief, I’ll know that despite all the uncertainty, I am certain that I can do this.

And that will be enough.