Thoughts for Current Times
It’s 8:30 pm. It feels like 10. The TV is on, but you don’t know what show it is. You’re scrolling through your Facebook feed; arm propped up on a pillow because you don’t have the energy to hold your phone up.
As another picture of a smiling kid showing off a completed craft on a clean kitchen table with his sisters playing a board game on the picked-up living room floor in the background scrolls by you can’t hold it in anymore. You start crying.
Your kitchen is a mess. You haven’t even wiped a counter down in two days.
You couldn’t vacuum the living room floor if someone offered you 2 cases of toilet paper to get it done. A vacuum wouldn’t be loud enough to drown out the fighting siblings anyhow.
You feel like the worst parent in the world.
All over social media, people are pointing to a silver lining of spending more time with family, bonding in the crisis, taking advantage of being together.
You just wish you could make it through a day in one piece.
Your spouse is as worn down as you are.
Your boss sent you to work from home last week, after denying you one work from home day a week for the past four years. The leadership team made it very clear they expected everyone to stay on top of their projects, and that cut-backs were likely in the coming months.
Your children’s teachers sent instructions on how to help them stay connected and get their school work done. New emails filled with things for you to help them do come in every day, alongside the task list from your boss.
Your spouse is losing clients left and right, struggling to maintain their self-employed income. They are doing everything they can think of to pivot and bring in new clients during this time.
At the grocery store buying supplies for the week, you feel shame picking up five dozen eggs while knowing your family will struggle to make them last two weeks.
You are not alone.
Most white-collar, dual-income American families are going through the same thing.
Don’t be mistaken; we are blessed to have our jobs. Most retail, travel, and entertainment workers are going through something much worse.
However, their horrible situation doesn’t diminish your bad one.
It is OK to feel overwhelmed.
You actually might have less free time now than you did a month ago.
You may start struggling to pay all the bills.
Your employer may shut down operations and lay you off with no warning, putting you in the same place as those retail and hospitality workers.
Your pain is real. Your struggles are real.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
Have compassion for those in a worse situation than you are, but know that it is OK to feel pain and sorrow for where you are now.
Acknowledge your new reality instead of struggling to measure up to someone else’s. Their situation is different.
Their pain is different.
Know that we all have pain, especially now.
Don’t hide it.
Don’t wallow in it.
Acknowledge it. In yourself. In others.
Then help each other through it.
