Hello all. You’re probably nodding along to the above, looking at your dozens of open browsers. On the computer, they’re *usually* important. Mine are several online courses, lists of book publishers and agents, Indeed (we ALL have that one open), Google Docs, companies I’m researching, and many tabs for my newest website. I realized that an issue I’m having is easy enough to get solved, but no matter how “user-friendly” plug-n-play web hosts are, they failed to revamp their ease of use for pandemic-weary, short-attention spanned adults in their 40s. Hi, that’s me.

I spent my scorching day yesterday pushing through to make my website look nice. It looks nice. It is not wowing me. Now, before you say, “You can hire people for that,” I’ll just put my palm up, says “Thanks,” and explain that I am far too poorly in the deep pockets realm to afford brand cereal, much less a website designer. I also love to tinker- I’ll create 15 new website options, trash 14 of them, and still question the 15th. There’s also the pervasive website envy from looking at other lovely, modern sites with fading menus and easy-to-click options. I know I can do that, really. But the frustration of spending all day figuring it out when my time is limited is frustrating (in my best John Oliver accent).

So what’s a budding copywriter to do? Drink more coffee? Snuggle the cats? Pray I’ve saved my work before one prances across the keyboard, butthole on proud display?

I’m going to listen to my ADHD and go run errands.

The river’s fairly calm, I see cars but no one’s around. The clouds are silvery blue and the wind occasionally threatens something more sinister is coming my way.

Really mother nature? Bring it. Life has already shown just how injurious real people can be. One can be unknowingly malicious, inflict unimaginable harm, offering emotional cruelty of the highest order. Those people need to be more kind to themselves. If you can’t be kind to yourself, to pick up your pieces, how do you stop yourself from harming someone else?

Oh! There’s the sun, peaking through to protest with warmth on top of my head as I sit alone by the river. And then there’s the river, so soft, so placating, in it’s gentle march south. Why does no one come out on the best days like this? The rain will come, but I’ve stolen the best time and the best spot. My little sliver of peace near the mass of disappoint and pain.

I imagine the days when people rode through here on horseback, how quiet life was, without the din of car traffic, incoming flights, the occasional military helicopter. One had to be more aware, senses more heightened. I’m under no illusion that life was easier, it wasn’t, but there was quiet.

Mad Girl’s Love Song

By Sylvia Plath

“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)”

This was a leftover draft/picture from November I believe. The days of whiling away hours at the coffee shop, reading, writing, learning. Life is returning to the inside environs but feels barely more safe than a vacation to Chernobyl. The threat is there, you just can’t see it. The ‘threat’ is also so much more than just the virus. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” keeps spinning in my head, and it pertains to all of us. We have a lot of new tricks to learn, but are we willing to let go of the old ones in order to move forward, to move on with a new way of living?

For someone who loves nature and being outdoors, who finds it as essential to her wellbeing as air, I don’t come to the river nearly enough. Right now I’m sharing a little stretch of parkland along the Potomac with a few guys fishing. The nearest are speaking Spanish, and it feels a little more like home. I hear cars blowing by, the lapping of water a few feet from my chair, the hum of conversation. I’m typing this post on my cellphone while my laptop leans against my leg; I’d feel like such an ass if I took it out. This is what happens when your “office”, aka, the coffee shop, is still closed indoors and your apartment is about as productive an environment as a crowded bar.

You become the girl with the laptop down by the river.

I’m down here hoping to make sense of my life getting back on track when it seems utterly impossible, especially as life around me tries to inch closer to the before time. Life before the virus. Also now, and rightfully so and a long time overdo, an uprising against racism and abhorrent brutality against black people. Our President is a bigot, million’s have no job, the virus is still a clear and present danger, and this was supposed to be my year?

I’m not asking for a redo, even as my near past was so bright and hopeful and wanted. No, I’m asking for us to get a fair shot at fixing and mending all this before everyone’s lives are completely destroyed. Our personal lives, our work lives, our our personal freedoms, our neighbors freedoms and rights. I ask myself every day if I have any fight left in me. I’ve been fighting for myself for a good 30 years now- fighting abuse, depression, sexism, unavoidable sickness and death, heartbreak, professional woes, and on. I am no one special; you’re probably seeing some of your own demons here.

So how does one keep pushing on in a time when leaning on others isn’t as easy as it once was? Every person is dealing with one or multiple crisis that are exponentially larger than three months ago. I’m experiencing a level of gratitude I’ve never had for seemingly little things- my best friend in Chicago doing a (failed) juice cleanse with me while she begins her last internship post-law school, another friend reaching out no matter how late or busy (or not) their lives are, the friends that still invite you over for dinner (safely and distantly!) For not letting that voice that keeps saying “You’ve still failed to amount to anything” win another morning.

That last one is the hardest. It’s heavy to keep a brave face and positive attitude when I have survived five of the roughest years of my adult life. Forgiving myself for making horrendous personal mistakes, for not pushing harder after seven years of nonstop job searching and coming up empty handed. There’s more, but the gist is, forgiveness. No one forgives themselves enough when life falls apart, when you feel unimportant or forgotten about or unloved. If you can’t forgive yourself, you’ll never move forward.

Pieces, small and large, of life have been chipped away and fallen apart. There’s new and old struggles to contend with, but likely not a lot of old ways to fix them. Find your new way. You are not defective, you just need to do more, try harder, ignore that terrible voice that wakes you up and goes “WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?”

I might not find my way forward down by the river, but I will give it a fighting chance.