This reminder has been taped to my bathroom wall for four years, and it astounds me how helpful it still is. I just took a shower, again convinced by reading this note, again mind-blown by how much it improved my mood. I have no shame about my post-it-reminder-based lifestyle.
“How are you?”
Bad??????????
Never before—NEVER before—has there been so much free advice at our fingertips for self-help in managing depression and anxiety, but so many years of trying to overcome the dumps by reading articles about gratitude and quotes about happiness and writing lists about small successes and buying mindfulness journals and scrolling Instagram makes me more feel like I'm trying to dig myself out of quicksand. All of the thinking and meaning-making about my mood in today’s world does nothing to improve my happiness. There's no logical solution to this because it's an unreasonable problem. It just is. The only way is through.
I have a little tendency toward depression or mania, and sometimes it’s an advantageous personality feature, and once in a while it's torture. But over decades of this I have become really good at surrounding myself with stabilizing forces—people, routines, environments—so I can have my moments to bounce off the wall while maintaining a realistic grasp on what is going on in my mind. I focus on identifying what's under control and what's not and just going forward from there. But I never gratitude-listed or happiness-hashtagged my way out of depression or dread or angst, and I've found it to be good for me to give up the impulse to over-analyze or an obsession to understand. To say "Okay, this is how I am and these are my limitations," rather than let the (completely human) urge to fix myself drive me deeper into the pit of self-doubt and worry. The only way is through, and there are things we must do along the way.
Things I’ve read
If You’re Already Dreading Winter, Here Are Some Small Ways to Prepare Now. The pandemic means we're probably going to be spending even more time indoors, so it's a good time to get your mind, body, and home ready to hunker down. Get ready to get ready again.
This week's issue of Anne Helen Petersen's "Culture Shock" series was excellent. I love her writing so much. "In short: we acclimate. We decide this is just the way things are, and that the number of deaths — in our community, in our country, in our world — is acceptable, because if it were unacceptable, wouldn’t we be expected to act differently? Wouldn’t we ask our elected officials to behave differently? Wouldn’t we fight until it was acceptable again? But we’re too exhausted for that."
‘Virtue Signaling’ Isn’t the Problem. Not Believing One Another Is. The basic objection of those who oppose "virtue signaling" is that no person could truly hold the "virtue" being "signaled." (The author, Jane Coaston, says she "is now convinced that 'vice signaling' — portraying yourself publicly as amoral, even immoral, on purpose — is a way bigger thing.") This is an older article that some of you may enjoy if you haven't read it.
I have Started and Not Finished like seven different books but my focus and attention span are so dismal, and I have to save so much of it for work. I only seem to be able to get through articles online at the moment.
I had a really great visit with an esthetician.
About two weeks ago I went to see Chevy Kozicek in her new space near Hanscom Park south of midtown (or, in District 9, which is how my brain works). Chevy is an esthetician, skin care specialist, and makeup artist who I have known for over a decade, and she is the owner of Skin by Chevy, which is where everyone is going now for facials and whatever else. Quarantine had me deep into one of those 9-step morning-and-night skin care regimens and I was putting tons of different products on my skin every day that I thought were helping me, until they weren’t, and I started to notice different problems. It may not have been the fault of the products—COVID stress, hormones, changing seasons, could be many things—but Chevy assessed my skin, talked to me about my goals, and recommended that I get back to a very basic routine. So for a little over two weeks now I have just been cleansing with micellar water (I’m using this kind, because I had it already) and then moisturizing with whatever. (I’m using this Pixi rose oil now. I’m not sure that I love it, but I had it on hand and wanted to try it, and it doesn’t seem to be making my skin do anything bad.) I’m going easier on my skin, and it looks absolutely great.
It’s also worth mentioning that one of the many things I love about Chevy is her advocacy for people in the beauty and service industry. In the early days of the pandemic, she snapped into action and worked around the clock to educate and organize estheticians, hair stylists, makeup artists, and others in the industry to contact their representatives and demand a mask mandate plus unemployment and pandemic benefits for essential workers. In Nebraska—and nationwide, certainly—politicians on the whole failed these workers. But with activists like Chevy, we did gain a small amount of ground locally in the fight for safe working conditions and unemployment benefits. The noise that Chevy made mattered a lot.
What else?
This work is like a seesaw with a bucket of concrete and a bucket of sand. You keep adding more and more grains of sand, and one day, the seesaw tips. And everyone goes, “that was sudden!” But no! It took a lot of people working for a long time.
I’m no longer accepting political contributions from police unions. I think other electeds should do the same. We can all work with the union, we can all cooperate, we can all be solutions-focused, and we will be. But I’m no longer open to being on the payroll.
I have started a new business and I am excited about it. I will tell you more about it later.
More to come. If you know someone who would like this in their inbox, forward it to them and tell your friends to subscribe. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter, too. Stay home as much as you can, mask up, and stay safe.
Meg