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It's Been a January for Me

How bout you?

Julie Lythcott-Haims

Jan 30
18

A local city two towns south of us, known as Sunnyvale, is determined to do something about an abundance of crows that have gathered in such numbers that the Sunnyvale sky is said to be covered in black clouds. Elected leaders decide to scare off the crows by pointing green lasers at them to simulate the eyes of predators, and by playing loud music to "freak them out." Suddenly, we now have crows back here in our trees in Palo Alto.

Sheds further light on this important new term "supply chain."

Which brings me to the cargo ship bound for the U.S. from Singapore that encountered such turbulent weather and high seas that a bunch of its massive containers fell overboard and sank into the vast ocean deep. Lost items include highly anticipated cookbooks that will have to be reprinted. Meanwhile their publication date is pushed back for months.

The lost cargo and returned crows somehow feel like metaphors for our times, although my mind can't seem to connect those dots for you right now which I'll just chalk up to January. By which I mean the second January of this damn pandemic. Truth be told, for much of the pandemic, my 82 year old mother has loudly hissed at the crows that lounge about and squawk from our trees, going so far as to bang pipes against the metal frame of the abandoned hammock out in the yard to get them to move on. She might be why they flew down to Sunnyvale in the first place, so I can't exactly complain that they're back.

How are YOU doing?

Two Fridays ago, I know I've already blown a major work deadline for the following Monday, with no better excuse than I need a break. On said Monday, instead of trying to make a bit of headway with said work, I spend an hour and fifteen minutes with fellow authors, all of whom are dear friends with kids of their own, and many of whom are also mental health clinicians. When one of them says when is someone going to ask us how WE are, we look at each other with eyes-wide-open silence. I can't tear myself away from the raw honesty.

The children are sad and scared and lonely and are creating depressive artwork and articulating suicidal ideation. The teachers are out sick and being yelled at by parents or by their school boards. The elected leaders are being yelled at too. The elders are alone and mystified by Zoom and harassed by scammers who infiltrate their computers and phones. We, who are somewhere between the age of child and elder, hold the fraying threads of home and work and homework and modified school situations and mental health breakdowns and quarantines and isolation and school refusals and broken appliances and the post office offering testing for a virus our relatives may or may not care about and relatives who need us while our primary relationships, if we have them, go to seed like untended fields, and if we don't have them, we are the most alone people of all, and if we are single parents we are superheroes in tattered capes. A woman calls my hotline to say "I woke up sobbing." A woman DMs me to say her teenage daughter has lost six classmates in the past year. Mothers in Boston do a primal scream. Yet the bosses come up with their inane plans for us to return to in-person work, and all we can think is Don't you realize we're humans?

My reserves are depleted, how bout you? Human interaction is the most fortifying juice for humans, so, twenty-two months into the life of a virus that would like to kill us, we keep ourselves inside, at a distance, masked on a never-ending high alert for anything that might encroach upon our safety and that of our loved ones. Instead of being nourished by each other and the things humans do together, we are parched and dry and brittle. And fragile.

I realize that I probably blew my Monday deadline because I really hope this project will be successful. Therefore I am terrified to start it. Afraid to invest in a future. Afraid to say I want.

How bout you?

🏚You've been in Julie's Pod, an online community for folks who want to learn and grow by opening up and getting vulnerable, and in so doing to help others learn and grow. You can subscribe here. (It's free. Subscribing just means that you'll get me in your inbox so you don't have to go searching for whatever I said next.) If you want to share this with a friend, please do.

📝If you left a comment on any post before today, here or on social media, I've probably responded, and I always appreciate what you have to say even if I may feel differently. Please feel welcome to join the conversation.

☎️ For those who can't comment publicly, I've set up the hotline 1-877-HI-JULIE where you can leave an anonymous voicemail to let me know what's on your mind. I summarize and respond to these calls live on my Facebook page on Mondays at noon Pacific Time (while keeping the caller's identity private).

⛑I am not a mental health practitioner or doctor. If you’re in crisis, I want you to get the help you need, right now. Text the Crisis Text Line at 741741. You deserve to be supported. So, if this is speaking to you right now, please text them.

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🤎 Keep being kind y'all. Kindness is magic.

© 2021-22 Love Over Time LLC All Rights Reserved

📸 Cover Photo Credit: Getty Images/Malte Mueller/fStop

✍🏻 Cartoon by Gemma Correll

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18 Comments

  • Tennessee Reed
    It has been quite the January for me as this is the second time this month I have gotten sick. Luckily, unlike earlier this month, it's a cold not COVID but it's unusual for me to be sick twice in one month. I am nervous that mask mandates have been li…
    See more
    • 15w
    • Author
      Julie Lythcott-Haims
      sounds so hard, Tennessee. thanks for sharing what you're going through with us.
      • 15w
  • Jeff Booth
    Hi Julie. Yes, this has been a long month--stretched out by treks across snow and ice; the ping-pong of variant waves and varied responses (in schools, at work, and through state mandates--or removal of them); and the ongoing (escalating?) mental reper…
    See more
    • 15w
    • Author
      Julie Lythcott-Haims
      I always love your perspective Jeff. Thanks for sharing it. I particularly love the concept that "we are designed for 'one another' -- let's live it out."
      • 15w
  • Cathy Baird
    I’ve come close to commenting several times, and what finally has booted me all the way (assuming I follow through with the little blue arrow) is the image of your mother shooing the crows to Sunnyvale, which made me laugh. (Our crows were flying north…
    See more
    • 15w
    • Author
      Julie Lythcott-Haims
      I wanted to go with the laughing emoji and the heart but i settled on the heart cuz it's me giving you a huge rocking back and forth hug. thanks for the laugh back. glad you're managing well or well enough. and thanks for finally commenting 👊🏽
      • 15w
  • Ellen Hirschhorn Cohen
    I felt a bit taken aback by the statement that people in primary relationships are the most lonely of all. From what I've been reading, domestic abuse, alcohol consumption are both up. Those of us without primary relationships have friends, especially…
    See more
    • 15w
  • Pamela Weiss
    I decided to go all out in January and managed to get sick with Covid in addition to my pie-in-the-sky plan to finish my script. Thanks - feeling seen today.
    • 15w
    • Author
      Julie Lythcott-Haims
      oh my goodness that's too much. i hope you're feeling like yourself again before too long. what's the script about?
      • 15w
    View 2 more replies
  • Linda Dodge Reid
    ‪Great post Julie! As a school board member, I’d say you’ve got the yelling backwards. But otherwise I agree, not the best January. Im not sure if this post is public on Facebook so I’ll just leave it at that and will continue to enjoy your writing!
    • 15w
    • Author
      Julie Lythcott-Haims
      Whoops sorry about that. I will amend to reflect that truth (I was thinking about anti-critical race school boards yelling at teachers who want to teach it). I'm glad you enjoy my writing. I hope your school board meetings get more congenial. It's a ve…
      See more
      • 15w
    View 1 more reply
  • Yukun Wu
    Now, to discuss my progress this past January, we'll need to get to a resolution that I have started since the end of the last year. It is essentially about recording the rate of progress of me doing my things.
    Now, in the past, most of the times when …
    See more
    • 9w
  • Mary Stoikes Indritz
    I took a difficult call from the daughter of an elderly friend; my elderly friend and I were in the same volunteer organization and I have never met her daughter. She told me her mother had passed away and that she had been generous, caring, passionat…
    See more
    • 4w
  • Mary Rauner
    Thank you Julie. Your post was healing for me today.
    • 15w
    • Author
      Julie Lythcott-Haims
      I'm so glad it found you, Mary. Sending some warm positive vibes your way. My trick lately is micro-noticing. Like "oh that small thing right there, that's good and I'm glad it's here/happening." I just listened to my mother's dearest friends tell her …
      See more
      • 15w
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