A Reminder That This Is Impossible

And yet we’re doing it anyway.

Let me state a thing we all already know, but may be helpful to put at the front of our minds every once in a while:

During this pandemic, my job has gotten harder to do, exponentially harder, and I’ve been given more responsibilities. This is true of everyone I know who is still lucky to be employed. Obviously, this increase in responsibility and difficulty has not come with any increased compensation — not more money, obviously, but not more time, either, nor more resources of any measure other than the well wishes of my colleagues, who are also drowning.

In the face of this increase in responsibility and difficulty at work, my family is also attempting to help two young children (thirteen is still young, damnit) navigate online school, which means a persistent nagging and checking and explaining story problems and reminding every half hour which Zoom they’re supposed to be on, or, for the older one who knows which Zoom he’s supposed to be on, giving speeches that veer from inspirational to hectoring about why his art grade matters, and why he needs to turn in assignments even when he doesn’t want to, and maybe he could consider going outside for a while and getting some exercise, and getting anxious at just how many Doritos the kid is eating in a day.

And since the work difficulties and the family difficulties are all happening concurrently, that means that sometimes papers don’t get graded on time or at all, and sometimes lectures get interrupted because the kid can’t get the straw in the Capri Sun (my students always delight in these interruptions, by the way), and sometimes the story problems go unexplained, and that’s just how it is. Time is finite.

And I am so lucky — I know precisely how lucky I am, down to the grain. As hard as it is for me and mine, with all our resources, our stable internet, our health, our friends, our pod, it is exponentially harder for others who don’t have those resources.

And even my husband, who has spent most of this year unemployed or underemployed, is holding steady, and bills are getting paid, and we’re making it through. And in some ways, this year has been ripe with blessings — the togetherness, the honesty, the pleasures we take in being alive.

But it’s impossible, what’s being asked of us. That we manage to do it is a miracle, and unsustainable.

So we have to give ourselves and each other grace. We have to relent whenever we can. We have to rebel, blow off steam, downshift, rest, take the verboten nap between Zooms, whatever it takes. We have to tend to ourselves. We must be tender in our tending. We must.

Forgive yourself. Drink some water. Forgive me, if you can. Forgive Zoom. Forgive the PE teacher who’s trying to make a gym class for your kid with a spatula and a rolled-up sock. Forgive the sock as it skitters under the sofa, and forgive your knees for making noise when you reach under the sofa to retrieve the sock, and forgive the sock for being dusty when you retrieve it. Forgive everything.

Water everything. Let it all soak. We are growing and will keep growing, and if it comes to it, we’ll bust the pot.