Day 151 and Counting

It's hard to believe it has been 151 days since we began this shelter-in-place began. In true AJ fashion, I am up early and feeling an intense desire to write. I just re-read my last post from early April where I was navigating feelings about 20+ days into isolation and how "this new normal doesn't feel normal at all." Fast forward 131 more and THAT time feels more normal than I can hardly remember. Back then, we were still cleaning out closets, coming up with home projects, organizing online school work, and still trying to treasure the slower pace and ability to connect as a family. I was still working on adjusting to seeing my clients virtually, taking my final final-exams for my therapy program, and contemplating what it would like when my Mom could begin moving here. I honestly thought that everyone was taking the pandemic seriously and it would last a month, maybe two if some people needed some convincing to stay isolated and stop the spread. Fast forward 131 days, I've received my associate license, began a private practice, traveled to Detroit for a crazy-scary super-invasive surgery for Mom that ultimately got the cancer out, and don't think twice about wiping everything down with a sanitazation wipe, getting tested weekly for COVID-19 (negative again yesterday), grabbing from our Corona-basket full of masks, gloves, face shields, and sanitizer every time I have to go somewhere (which is rarely) and have worn real pants maybe four times. Sometimes, the only time I exit my house gate is to move the car from one side of the street to the other to avoid a street-cleaning ticket. And there is no end in sight, it's like half way through a long-boring movie when you ask yourself, "does this even have an ending?" My baby starts fourth grade in just a few days; she'll learn from home watching her friends and beloved teacher from her device at the kitchen table while I work-from-home in the other room. I began, and stopped, and began again several times on trying to post about George Floyd's murder and the much-needed uprising that came afterward. I could just never find the words. I still can't. I have had to face my own privilege, superiority, and internal biases head on all while watching the man I love most in the world, who is also black, confront and process this trauma that's been with him his entire life. What a total mind-f@*k to try to be compassionate and empathize with someone trying to understand a system-of-pain that in many ways you, your ancestors, and people that look like you inflicted upon them in the first place. I have to do better, and I've made a promise to myself to do just that with a caveat that inaction perpetuates the problem so I can't be silent and allowing others to continue this infliction-of-pain by saying "All Lives Matter" or "I don't see color" or "my best friend is black" or "why does it have to be violent" or "why can't it be peaceful" or "I don't have a racist bone in my body" or "George Floyd was a really bad dude" or "Breonna wasn't really an EMT" or "Blue Lives Matter" or "Trump-Pence 2020" or "black on black crime is worse" or "why am I paying for the sins of my ancestors" or "I'm not really white anyway" and about 10,000 more statements that are actually re-victimizing black and brown people with every word, every post and we have to be better and do better. White people I am talking to you (and internally to myself). Let the black voices do the talking here and we have to work on listening, donating, supporting, and educating of ourselves without relying on the oppressed to teach us, the opressors. Whiteness is the problem and racism is the way it is presented. One of my favorite statements from a black woman and activist named Kimberly Jones (who is nominated for a NAACP Image Award, look her up if you haven't already) is "Y'all are lucky that we only want equality and not revenge." To those that are struggling, it's OK. To those that are thriving, that is good too. Each of us is doing the best we can. We have multiple pandemics occuring all at the same time, some global, some domestic, and some just in the four walls of our homes (if you haven't lost it yet). I keep hearing how people just want to get back to normal, but after this long is there any semblance of normal to even get back to? I know for me I am forever changed by these 151 days, and I'll continue to change. Even once there is a vaccine and we can go back to hugging and visiting and interacting in our older ways, this time will be logged for fundamental and deep rooted adjustments that were a long time in the making for me.