Shhhhhh. There there. It’s all right, it’s okay, Tessy baby girl…
When my daughters were little wee things I used to comfort one with stories, endless colourful magical children’s books at bedtime to lull her to sleep –okay fine lulling sounds peaceful and easy when really I was sitting in the gold story chair beside her bed animating volume after volume, often making up my own tales which were held to a pretty high standard of engagement for the imagination of a toddler I must say, until I had a nerve pinched in my thigh and my left foot was pins and needles and sometimes (okay fine almost all the time) I would end up lying beside her and practicing Navy Seal breathing until she at last drifted off and I could crawl on my belly across the 1949 hardwood (beautifully refinished but a landmine of surprisingly loud creaks) praying to Mary that she would not jolt awake and catch me in my terrible act of abandonment and then also to forgive me for the same.
The other daughter was musical and for her I made up lullabies for comfort. I remember this hiking trip we took as a family when she was just a baby. Our calm afternoon was overtaken by swirling wind that shrieked down from the mountain bending pines and scattering grit, scaring her to tears. I scooped her close to me to shelter her from from the sound and debris, and I sang lullabies over and over until she breathed peacefully and then fell asleep on my shoulder; ahhh the blissful weight of a sleeping child. When she was three we took walks and sang meandering harmonies together that for the life of me I wish I had recorded. And then as she grew up a little (what a terrible sad idea) she began correcting my pitch and my lyrics and when I tried to learn guitar the magic was over #twang. But then she became the DJ of new sound and our favourite thing was (is) to drive around running errands together bopping to songs we both like – at times I can’t help but counsel the poor lovelorn artist crooning in despair on their relationship patterns. Again Adele? I mean Bruno no healthy woman wants you to catch a grenade for her, step in front of a train for her. Please! Try doing the dishes once in a while or actually NOT focusing on yourself for long enough to validate what she is saying to you you drama King. And then I would get real compassionate about it Bruno Buddy you need to heal some old wounds –this whole sacrifice thing is not going to work out for anyone involved.
MOM!!!! STOP!!!!!! I mean I thought I was funny.
But I’m not here to tell you about my relationship work with Bruno and the gang.
I’m here because we’ve been through some shit.
Not all of us are thriving.
Because even if we are thriving we have loved ones who are struggling.
Someone is connected to someone who is in the trenches.
Because even if we are thriving there is new shit going down.
And we are affected. Emotionally.
And it’s all so very confusing and disorienting.
We want to be ROARING like the ROARING TWENTIES, with new fun fashion (although not many a figure can pull off those shapeless dresses with no room for a bosom) and merriment and reckless abandon because it feels so good to take off the mask and shed some of the 600 pounds of inhibitions we have been carrying around for two years!
But we are weeping inside and helpless over the ugly and tyrannous murder of innocents.
We are confused and tired and disoriented by our conflicting emotions.
We lay in the rubble and ruin of structures and industries and economies and lives.
We are shell shocked and trembling at the next resurgence or disaster.
We are terrified that it’s all going to end, and get much worse beforehand.
Our responses to grief are all over the map. From a healthy dose of compartmentalization, to manic carpe diem’in it through the bucket list, to staying in bed under our 500 blankets.
What we NEED right now is a MOM.
Maybe not the mom who raised us because she might not have had the tools, or she was sick, or she is up there in spirit now cheering us on.
But the voice of all that is nurturing, comforting, all knowing and good lavishing us with attention. We need softness and tenderness and compassion. We need wisdom and grounding and warmth. We need HER telling us how proud she is of us and letting us be kids, playing and laughing and carefree. But we also need her paying closer attention when we say, ya I’m fine, because she knows that we probably aren’t just fine and we may need to talk about our feelings. We need her steering us to care and to contribute and to find meaning in what we can give of ourselves. We need her to send us to the birthday party but also for a nap when we’re jacked up on icing and goody bags. We need her to pull us into her lap and stroke our hair when it’s just too much, or just because we’re going to need that love and safety in our pockets.
And since I have some practice at it, let me be that voice today for you who are thriving and you who feel like you are falling apart.
If you’re happy right now in the general sense that life is going well, you’ve solved some problems, you feel good about yourself, this is not a call for bowing down your head or an admonishment for celebrating life when some are losing it.
We don’t diminish suffering with sympathetic suffering. By disallowing or stifling joy.
We can’t help them breathe by taking off our oxygen mask in solidarity.
That is not how we HELP.
(I hope Bruno is paying attention).
THE WORLD needs purveyance of hope, laughter, sanity.
We need reasons not to give up.
If you are crushing it, or falling in love, or have just cracked the code for etherio-crypto-bit-block-chain-embedded-non-fungible-tokens that will cure cancer, you should be drinking some Veuve Clicquot and sharing it with me, and if I coached you on the way to this magnificence do I at least get a puppy or like a hamster or a box of chocolates?
Seriously though you should be unabashedly happy, because happiness is the cure and the reason and the truth (and obviously Pharrell Williams has had some decent therapy).
If you are jacked up on sugar, giddy with WTF, manic with relief because you see an end in sight or extra manic that it might be taken away or even manic with grief –it’s okay to let loose, to rebel a bit. It’s okay to stay up late or tie one on, or dance the night away. It’s a great idea to take an existential play date. But let me give you some limits. What a Debbie Downer, ahhh Mom you say in that voice. But hear me out I mean just some safety limits. Don’t take the whole paycheque to the casino. Don’t get destructive with your rebellion in case the world doesn’t end as soon as you think, and because you want to go out on a delirious sugar high NOT worshipping the porcelain god as they said back in my day (you know before time began). BUT ALSO, if you don’t want a heart hangover and I know you don’t, take a time out or two to let yourself feel some feelz. At least get in the same room with them, give them a hug or two. Taking some TLC from mom will prevent you from waking up with a Tiger in your bathroom and a few lost years.
If you’re saturated, or drowning you need to know that you’re not failing or ruined or ruinous. You aren’t lost or over. For many of us, Covid and related End Times disasters have added an invisible weight to pre-existing problems. Emotional co-morbidities if you will. If you are wondering why you can’t bounce back this may be the reason.
The heaviness of it all is like moving through water, and some of us are saturated and can’t seem to get back to air.
If the divorce seems like it will eat you alive.
You can’t remember what used to bring you joy.
You have lost your way.
You’re exhausted and afraid that you’re failing someone, everyone.
I want you to come close and just allow yourself to be comforted for a time.
Allow me to be the voice of all that is soft and receptive and nurturing, allow me to awaken your inner mom, gently and have her step in and take over for a while. Let yourself listen to the story or the lullaby.
Let yourself be soothed and taken care of.
Stop trying to solve it for today and just ALLOW some higher good, Mother Mary, or the Great Goddess, or Mama of the Sky, whatever that force of the softer side of higher love is for you, to take you in their arms and rock you.
Buoy you back to the surface.
(Of course if you are afraid for your own safety then it’s time to reach out to a medical professional and there is no shame in it…we don’t all come with an endless supply of disaster recovery resilience and that is okay).
And for all of us regardless of our current mindset or state of affairs, transitions are a process. They take time, EMOTIONALLY. We can’t just flip a switch and feel normal again. The last thing we need to be adding to the fallout of two years of heavy heavy shit (and some new and improved heavy shit) is the pressure to just be free of it, to be unaffected, to bounce like Tigger back into our previous selves. We don’t fit in those britches anymore.
We’re in it together and that is a beautiful thing but it also means we need to buy some wider pants.
We need some comfort and kindness, some stories and lullabies, a big pair of arms for that wee self inside that doesn’t even know what’s the what, who’s pinning the tail on the donkey’s head with glazed eyes while the room spins on its axis.
One foot in front of the other.
TLC whether we need it or not.
Taking some moments for comfort and rest.
Lowering the pressure and the expectation.
Encouraging.
Understanding that our usual coping skills may be maxed out and it’s not our fault.
We need to open our hearts and our laps and mom the shit out of ourselves, our joined selves, our world.
Much love,
— Erin
P.S. If you have a friend or loved one who is struggling sometimes a few sessions of support can make all the difference. Reach out and we’ll find the solution that is right for them.
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