One Step Forward, Two Steps Back.

I was going to write a quick post about my feminist rage against the double standard that still governs female sexuality and sensuality, but let's save that for a time that isn't right now. I want to do a quick mental health check, because it's alarming how quickly, and how devastatingly we went from things maybe getting better to things being worse than before.

I've been checking in with friends over the last couple of weeks and it seems like we've all collectively hit a second wave of anxiety, depression, and even feelings of despair, but this time we don't have the emotional reserves to deal with it.

Briefly, I think a lot of this has to do with how we felt five months ago, when the news was starting to report about a mysterious virus that was slowly making its way across the globe. We were scared, but we laughed it off and shook our heads at the people hoarding toilet paper. We were told (most of us) that if we sheltered in place, we could collectively make this go away, or at least prevent it from scaling up into a true global disaster.

But american exceptionalism does not like to be told no, and so while some of us worked from home and stopped seeing friends, while some cities became ghost towns and restaurants and bars stood empty, in other places life carried on as it always had, and in some cases with even more stubborn ardor and determination than before. We watched as people ignored the collective good in favor of individual satisfaction, with willful ignorance or a broad refusal to see the potential community consequences of their actions. As other countries suffered and buckled, we had protesters who demanded salons reopen so they could have their haircuts, or their favorite bars once again pour them a cold one, because hey, it's our right as americans.

And then the real protests began. Not ones that whined about having to do the hard thing and stay home, but brave ones that spoke out about the systemic injustice and racial violence that has existed in our country from its inception. In many ways it was painful and horrifying, as we saw peaceful people protesting police violence being met with exaggerated and extreme police violence. The cameras are on, the fingers were on record. For weeks, there were daily protests in nearly every state, and the movement was carried and echoed abroad, where millions protested in what is now being considered the greatest civil rights movement in the history of humankind.

We are here to witness it, we were lucky enough to be here to participate in it, to contribute to it. And we did, in as safe of ways as possible; with many protesters carrying extra masks, hand sanitizer, or anti-bacterial wipes for anyone who needed them. Of course it took a couple of weeks, but as the numbers started rolling in, very few new coronavirus cases were actually a result of participating in the protests. Mainly, frustratingly, the new case loads are overwhelmingly younger people who broke social distancing to see each other at house parties or in newly reopened bars.

And that brings us to where we are now. Like I said before, I wanted to write an article about the double standard of sexual liberation that still plagues women, and I will, a different day. Right now what is important is acknowledging that the exhaustion is really kicking in, that the anxiety we felt in March may not be anything compared to this.

We thought this would take six months to get over. Or we watched other countries that had their shit together reopen and now approach something that seems almost normal. Mental anguish and stress is easier to take when we can envision an end in sight. But now, in July, we are forced to reexamine that belief, and realize that it may not just take months, but it may take years before we see an end to this, least of all because we all think we're the special ones, and that one BBQ can't hurt us all, can it? Many countries have closed their borders to us though, and our president is still rarely seen with a mask on. We haven't hit the second wave yet, because we aren't even done with our first one.

And for many of us, Black Lives Matter is something we could ignore. We could go to brunch, we could go play ball in the park. We could go camping or say "I would love to march but my girlfriend's parents are visiting that weekend." Before, we could choose to look away but we can never again say that we didn't know. We are joining a fight that has been going on for hundreds of years, and we are very, very late to the party.

It is exhausting, to battle two pandemics at once. It is exhausting to realize that the first one will not end as quickly as we thought it would, and to learn what Black people already knew, is that the pandemic they've been fighting their whole lives, well, we're only just getting into the ring.

This is a broad mental adjustment from being comfortable to being uncomfortable. To being scared and exhausted and stretched thin. This is not the time to tap out yet, because we haven't even started fighting. I've hit many breaking points over the last couple of weeks, which is why I stepped away from writing for a little bit. I needed to focus on how to rebuild my mental energy and emotional stores, how to create more sustainable patterns and how to plug in in ways that are long-term.

I sheltered in place until I could feel myself breaking, and then I became vulnerable. I reached out to the people I loved and told them about my fragile bits. I was honest about the space I was in, and the affirmation and care I needed. In doing so, I was also able to reach out to them and give them the care that they needed to. Emergent strategy, and movement building is successful when there is mutual care and accountability, and by taking care of others, I was able to find the care for myself, a symbiotic love that I had forgotten I could lean on.

Do you feel like you have those relationships in your life? Part of the isolation of Covid, at least for me, was realizing that some people I was close to were, at best, only superficial in their care for me. It made me feel worse at the beginning, that I was unloveable or unworthy of care in the moments when I needed it most, but now I feel like my community and network are super strong. When they are made up ONLY of the people I trust with my life, so much worry I was carrying in me disappeared.

Please make sure you are checking in on yourself and on other people. It is not enough to watch their instagram stories or like their tweets or facebook posts. Make sure you are asking meaningful questions, and letting yourself be vulnerable as well. Take note of your feelings, of your energy levels and emotional stability, and do the work to detail what you need to replenish. Take some time to take care of yourself, because this is where the real fight begins.

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Note: A small correction was made to this post to capitalize the word “black” when referring to Black people.