Hello!
If you, like me, are stuck inside right now thanks to that foot of white stuff that was just dumped on us this week, then perhaps your February doldrums seem particularly vicious today.
Believe me, I am with you.
The high temperature predicted for today is 17 degrees! Yay! This means not only is it not safe for me to leave the house with my fourteen month old, because I don't have a car, it means we will be stuck inside my three room apartment all day for the sixth day in the last two weeks.
Before you go pitying me. I do not have it bad, by a long shot.
During the blizzard yesterday, as truckloads of those teensy, evil white flakes that sting you in the eyes if you try to walk in them were blown savagely about, I held my sweet babe and he yanked my hair, and I sipped some coffee from the warm confines of my home and I was grateful.
I am very very lucky.
There are people, just like me, with nowhere to go in these lethal conditions.
There are people sleeping in bus stations and subway tunnels to stay out of the cold and the wind and the storm.
There are people who are being kicked out of homeless shelters because "they've been there too long".
I'll never forget, the first year I worked in downtown crossing, I was desperate to get outside on my thirty minute lunch break because it was the first nice (ish) Spring day of 2008.
It was a little raw, but the sun was shining, and the bitter temperatures of the last couple of weeks had me so happy to soak up a little vitamin d while inhaling my bagel.
A woman and her two friends who were disheveled and carrying a number of scuffed and filthy looking bags and backpacks between them came and sat on the other side of the bench with their backs to me.
Here's something you probably don't want to know about me: I am an incorrigible eavesdropper.
I freaking LOVE listening in on strangers' conversations. What more could you possibly ask for? Drama, and a broken plotline that you have to fill in the missing bits to?
It's one of my favorite games.
Anyhoo, so I'm listening to this woman talk, and I realize she's explaining to her male compatriots how in order for her to be safe in the shelter at night, she has to pick a man to sleep with, otherwise she runs the risk of getting kicked out of her bed at the very least, by someone bigger than her, or raped simply because she's a woman, and nobody's paying attention.
The guys were sympathetic, but they didn't seem surprised nor in fact was she telling them for shock value. From what I overheard, it sounded like she was running through the list of men in the shelter at that moment who she felt were safe enough to sleep with, and she wanted her two friends to let her know if she was wrong about anybody. I gathered from the conversation, that she had not slept with either of those men, since they were at the Veterans shelter, and they were all seriously conferring about who she was the best off sharing a bed with. She was very matter of fact about the situation, even stating that she expected she was going to have sex with whoever it was whose bed she shared, that it was pretty standard, but she just wanted to make sure they wouldn't hurt her, and would let her get some uninterrupted sleep afterward.
My stomach clenched, and I stood up off of the bench. I turned, and I reached into my wallet and gave the woman the only thing inside, a five dollar bill. I think i mumbled something about how she should get a coffee, but then I ran away because my ears were ringing with how ridiculously easy my life was in comparison to what this woman faced every single night she wanted to get some sleep.
So I find a dose of perspective to be awfully important when I start to feel a bit shitty about being stuck inside yet again. Things, I say to myself, things could be a HELL of a lot worse than this.
So this morning when I looked outside, and the thermometer read 10F, I shrugged.
The thing I am learning as a parent, and especially as a parent with a predisposition to depression is that everything really and truly is temporary. Blizzards, babies, seasons, and periods of merciless self doubt are all finite.
When I was younger, in my late teens and early twenties, I remember people telling me that my sadness wouldn't last forever, that I would feel better soon, that the dramatic nature of my emotions were all part of my hormones rearranging themselves, and I could never believe them.
"You don't know," I would think fiercely. "You're not in here with me. This may never stop."
I wish I could impart the wisdom of my thirty four year old self on that young version.
I suppose it's nothing you can be told though. You have to figure it out for yourself. You have to make yourself strong enough to get through the truly dark times and find your way out the other side.
This is why, though I have checked out from social media considerably so that the anxiety mongers don't fan the fires of my fear and neuroses based insomnia, I am still engaged. I check my sources. I read only feminist sites that are about movement, resistance, and positive action.
I refuse to expose myself to the tradition sources of media because they want to encourage the negativity that fattens these situations.
I've taken a vow not to say the president elect's name. He doesn't deserve the power of being named.
I'm planning on participating in March 8th's World Without a Woman Day (by not purchasing anything from any establishment). I am also planning on participating in the Ides protest of sending postcards of dissent to the White House. If you would like to be part of those movements, look them up. I encourage you to because they will remind you, you are not powerless, not even if you are trapped in your house because of a snow storm or a cold or because you need to be.
I recommend taking stock of your surroundings every day and being grateful for your creature comforts.
I also recommend HIGHLY that you either write a To Do list at the beginning of your day (or the night before) it will help you feel accomplished throughout your day, so very much.
Here's mine.
TO DO:
-Feed Baby Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.
-Take shower. Brush teeth. Get dressed.
-Do 10-30 minutes of yoga, whatever babe allows.
-Play games with Babe at least three times for an hour each time.
-Get babe down for two naps (length tbd).
-Read at some point.
-Try to limit tv/netflix to one-two hours for the day.
-Make something (a recipe, a craft, a toy, knit, write a blog, whatever you can concentrate on for a half hour that makes you feel productive) while Babe plays in pack n' play.
-Reach out to someone, call a friend to chat for a half hour, or see if anybody can come visit you.
-Eat three meals yourself.
-Read a book or two with the Babe and get to bed at a decent hour.
This is my to do list.
It's not fancy, but it gives me something to refer to when I'm in the miasma of the post lunch apocalypse where the whole afternoon/evening is stretching endlessly ahead of me, and I feel time is meaningless and I might actually go crazy.
Oh, and remember to look around every once in a while, take a deep breath, and remind yourself that today will end no matter how long it feels. You will go to bed. The baby and yourself will be okay, whether or not you actually managed to shower, and it's okay if you didn't. Then you can try again tomorrow. Really. You can. There is always a tomorrow.
LOVE.
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