when i began working on the care package, i told myself i would only spend as much time on it per day that would bring me joy and peace. i know what it’s like to experience a project or an event where the organizers were stressed out, and i didn’t want that to emit into a project, especially one that’s about inspiring calm. but as projects go, the last couple of days still ended up being long, and there was no denying the irony in me swearing at my computer for processing meditations too slowly.
the days since tuesday’s launch have brought some very welcome free time, but i’m learning that being busy with work for the past couple of weeks also had its perks. mainly, i was hardly spending any time on social media and i was not following the news at all. now that i have all this time on my hands, those hands are back to typing nytimes.com on the browser bar, reloading ig feeds, and other things that are pressuring me to move from a state of “we are one” to “we are fucked.”
for as long as i can remember, people have known me as someone who is well-informed, or more commonly, “up on shit.” over the years, i’ve participated in what has become a culture that champions being the town crier, the whistle-blower, the tastemaker. but at the same time, we’ve reached an agreement that we’re all on information overload. in this moment, i could open my ig stories and see one set of posts that chastises me for not knowing the latest recommendations by the CDC, followed by another set that tells me i’m acting too privileged if i’m not aware of all the other travesties happening in the world, followed by another post telling me that it’s time to sit and reflect on how i can change the course of my life, followed by another post saying that i shouldn’t feel like i have to do anything right now. every website has a red or yellow banner at the header these days. it feels like everything is in all caps all the time.
lately, the strength i’ve been finding for myself and for others has been through not being up on shit. scrolling through all the headlines again, i can’t fathom how i could’ve found the morale to work on the care package in between exposing myself to all the fear, alarm, outrage, and even aggressive calls to calm down. i reckon that for as many of you who have been reading these posts of mine, there are plenty of others who find it too wordy, incredibly frivolous, so self-absorbed, very ill-timed or some other form of not the right thing. mostly, i’m finding peace in the fact that this is all okay. writing like this each day has shown me that if i don’t take this time for myself, something else will.