Last night everything hit me. Like a 10 lb bag of bricks.
When this all started I read a lot — news, op-ed, whatever my Mother sent me as she is a veracious consumer of news, anything to stay informed about what was going on. I spent my days hitting refresh on my news app, just waiting for the next traumatic headline to hit all the while trying to find a new sense of normalcy. After a week of that I noticed myself living in fear with constant anxiety So I started curating what and how much I read and slowly felt ease sink back in to my daily life. Until last night.
I read a story about a wife who lost her husband one day and her father the next, followed by an interview with a doctor at a hospital in Queens detailing the extreme situation that their hospital is in. Afterwards, it was as if the dam that had been holding back every single emotion associated with this pandemic finally gave out.
I imagined all of the mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, sisters, brothers, grandparents, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews that have or will have to endure the pain of losing a loved one, the doctors and nurses that are on the front line literally risking their own lives to save others, and the fear that their family might have right now.
My heart constricts with sadness.
photography by Brianna Lee | hair by Tessa Matsis Smith | makeup by Summer Brazil | wardrobe Lauren Winter
And it is then engulfed with fear. The fear of not know WTF is going to happen. The fear that sinks in when I consider the scenario in which our government and people in power make a catastrophic call to “open our country for business” putting millions of peoples lives at risk all for “the sake of the economy” which is really code for their own financial interests. The fear, and anger, of what could happen if all of our hospitals reach maximum capacity and as a result people with routine medical needs are dying because they can’t get care. All because our pathetic excuse of a medical system isn’t equipped to handle anything other than profit driving illness.
Then there is the fear that this could get so much worse than we ever imagined. It terrifies me. It’s heart breaking. It’s too much emotion for one heart, physical container, to handle.
So I cry. When I allow myself to feel all of this, I can’t do anything but cry. I cried myself to sleep, and this morning, I cried more as I tried to push through my tasks for the day.
I don’t know if I have any advice for anyone feeling something similar other than to feel it. I called my Mom and sobbed to her this morning. I wrote. I let it out. It’s part of being human – feeling uncomfortable emotions and moving through them, reaching for light instead of getting swallowed by darkness.
So yea, today, my emotions got the best of me, and that’s ok, because somewhere someone else is feeling something similar, if not the same, and you realize that you’re not as alone as your mind makes it out to be.
I know that, eventually, we will all get through this shit storm and there will be a rainbow at the end of it all. So I take a deep breath, send energy and light to those that need it and remember, we will get through this.
XO
-S
photography by Brianna Lee | hair by Tessa Matsis Smith
