If You’re Feeling Overwhelmed, It’s Okay
The ‘new normal’ has the same ol’ stress
The year started off with a bang for me. New Year’s Day, I learned a family member was hospitalized with Covid. I was soon having to take leave from work to travel home after learning more of my family members had contracted the deadly disease, including my mother. The day she was diagnosed was the day the Capitol was under siege. And when Biden was being sworn in, I was answering emails, setting a timer to give my mom her medicine, and trying to fit in some squats to meet my New Year’s fitness goals.
The world has the nerve to keep spinning while I’m trying to get a grip on all that’s going on. I’m trying to balance the pandemic, the president, the pressures of work, the people I love, and my damn self. I think it’s time to admit that I’m a tad overwhelmed.
Medium writer Luwa Adebanjo helped me come to terms with this.
“We cannot continue like this. We cannot keep pretending this is all okay. The global pandemic and our country’s handling of it is incredibly important right now. It is creating trauma we are all having to live through.
“Unfortunately, the sentence ‘We know these are unprecedented times’ is almost always followed up with some form of ‘but we are going to expect you to keep doing what you are doing and we will offer no effective support.’ There is no new normal, and it is okay to not be okay right now.”
It has to be okay. Because right now we’re all just doing the best we can.
