When The World is Running Down

how do you make the best of what's still around

It’s 4am and I’m up and watching CNN. I’ve been up since 3am, when I woke with a vague recollection of things happening yesterday. Eventually the fuzz of sleep dissipated and a picture - more of a collage - formed in my brain; an insurgence, rioting, dead people, a president and members of congress fomenting all that, record numbers dead from a pandemic, the overall feeling that things are going deeper into the hell we entered quite a long time ago.

I got out of bed because what else is there to do once your mind goes wandering down that path. I turned on the tv, anxious to see what fresh hell unfolded while I was sleeping. I read some harrowing accounts from journalists who were inside the Capitol when it was taken over. I see a graph with new, horrifying covid statistics. I skim some articles about the 25th amendment. This is a hell of a thing to do to yourself at 4am. I’ve set up the day to be filled tremendous anxiety and a creeping fear that the worst is yet to come, that this is all not the culmination of things, but a beginning of sorts. What direction are we headed in? Where is this all going to take us?

There’s got to be a better way to live life during these times, I think to myself. I don’t want to stick my head in the ground because that’s not my nature; I like to be up front and center with current events, I get caught up in keeping up with the news. But how much is too much? When do I step back and say, this isn’t good for your mental health. And how do I approach that, how do I step back when this is, for better or worse, my world.

The truth is, there’s no stepping back from it for me. Between twitter and the tv and the endless news outlets that are available to me online, I am submerged in it and I’m in too deep to swim out now. There will be no cutting off the news channels, there will be no quitting twitter or closing the laptop. But I can temper it, I can offset everything I’m watching and reading by supplementing them with small breaks to do other things. I can take the time to watch an episode or two of Ted Lasso. I can work on some fiction. Put my laundry away. Ride my bike. Walk the dog. And because I’m home from work while I await results of a covid test, I can take a nap here and there.

I have to do things that make me remember the world is not totally an awful place. There is art out there, whether that takes the form of a classic novel or a mindless rom-com doesn’t matter, it’s just good to consume something besides news. There are conversations to be had with my sisters, group texts in which we spend hours exchanging memes and sharing recipes and talking about hockey. There are albums to listen to, music that takes me away from the talking heads droning on my tv and I will lose myself in that for an hour or so, sometimes writing while I listen, other times just existing outside the realm of riots and viruses and bad presidencies, finding a place that’s almost a meditation, a mindful, peaceful plateau.

The world is a shitshow right now. We’re closed in, shut down, living with a fearful tinge to our everyday existence. Some of us are walking a fine line, treading carefully, trying not to give in to the anxiety and depression that looms above us at every turn. It’s been a hard ten months, and things just keep happening to make living in this world harder, more complex, a little more harrowing. It’s tough to remember to take a time out from everything and just live.

But how are we expected to just live our lives with all this going on? No matter what’s happening in the world we still have to tend to life, go to work - whether that means commuting to an office or your kitchen - take care of the kids, cook dinner, do the laundry, run to the store, all the mundane tasks that make up our day, that fill our time even while the machinery of life outside of our homes hums in the background. It’s always there, the politics, the virus, the changing face of the world and our compact lives. It feels weird sometimes to be spending moments loading the dishwasher and planning tomorrow’s meals when there’s havoc all around us, but those things have to be done. And they’re good for our sanity. The normalcy of folding towels or making the bed is what keeps us grounded. To neglect those things is to neglect your mental health.

It’s hard navigating between two worlds - one world in which have our everyday lives to live and the world that intrudes on our lives, the reality of what’s going out there, beyond our windows. Each deserve our attention. But how much attention to that world outside our windows is too much? When you start to feel anxious, frightened, overwhelmed, it’s time to take stock of what else is around you. Put something else on your tv for half an hour. Listen to some music. Lose yourself in a work task. Play a board game with your kid. Walk your dog. Bake a batch of cookies. Just remove yourself momentarily from the chaos of the world, retreat to your own little world where this is clarity and order.

I am going to make an effort to take my own advice and check out of the constant barrage of news for brief moments today. I have work to do. I have laundry to fold. I have my sanity to preserve. No, the things that are ailing us will not go away. They might even get worse. But we must pay attention to the things that heal us, even momentarily. Find your peace and live it in for a while. The world isn’t going anywhere.