how are you? really, how are you?

I want you to know that your anxieties, your depression, the moments you feel “the bad” breathing on your neck – they are deserving of recognition. You do not need to pretend, to hide, to sweep any of your ghosts away. They are also as worthy of love and attention as anybody else’s – just because the world chooses to outwardly sympathize with someone else does not diminish your own. (I mean, it is pretty cool that Ryan Reynolds talks about his anxiety but you’re just as cool.) You do not need to be loud about it. You do not need to be quiet about it. You do not need to be anything. The right people – whether it be a single person or an entire tribe – whether it be your own mother or a thousand strangers – the right people will stay and be there on both the days you want to talk about it and the days your walls cave in.

We have been in survival mode for months, navigating a polarized world, processing a global pandemic, taking care of our loved ones, checking in with our colleagues, learning deeply about our role in social change and feeling the weight of responsibility in our bones. How do you balance between the hysteria and the day-to-day? How do you properly feel both relief and pain. What is the accepted human emotion while I’m indoors swiping my thumb in an upwards motion, while others are shaking in tears, gasping for air. People are losing their jobs, homes, and lives. Some days it feels as if there is tragedy unfolding every moment, in every corner of the world.

journal excerpt: not myself lately

when I say I am not myself lately
you have to believe me

because I don’t ever arrive late
or have a hard time leaving the bed,
usually trade soaking up the world
for soaking up safety,

I don’t make excuses
and avoid love
and leave work or lectures early,
I don’t use the word coward–

but here I am
and all of this
and more
has my name
attached to it,

so when I say
I am in a chrysalis
I never meant to be in,
I mean I never intended
to hold myself captive
inside myself like this,

don’t know who’s
pulling the strings or
if I’m becoming
things I’d still like
time to be,

I was ripped up
and put back together the wrong way,

and like Frankenstein’s monster,
I am wandering and reaching for all the
wrong things, and unsure of how to feel about
being made up of so many
pieces of other people,
am still trying to find fractions
of what I thought I was
scattered on a
kaleidoscope floor,

and you have to believe,
when I say all this to you

I’m not even sure if it’s me
who’s holding this pen.

I wanted to phone my aunt in India and tell her to be kind to the farmers, tell her to give them money for crops or at least
bring over baskets of fruit, I’d say, Did you know that the number of suicides has increased in the past year alone? I’ve been reading, learning, donating, and having uncomfortable conversations. I have held friends while they have been cried over the deaths of their loves ones. I observed my mom get laid off and worry about finding new employment with limited options as a non-English speaking immigrant. I have had unconditional grace towards those who have hurt me with words and actions as they process their pain. I have buried myself in work, stretching myself thin, trying to be the healer, the helper and the one who can carry it all. I started seeing a therapist who explored my crisis response through the lens of trauma and shared with me that the world is not my burden to bear. The hardest thing is learning how to take care of yourself while finding time to contribute to the world too, and sometimes it’s easy to do that just by being who you are, but sometimes it’s not, and most days, I just need to be told not to carry the whole world between my too-fragile fingers.

Some days I am asked what I’ve done and I can say I scaled the tallest mountain in myself, climbed over my uncertainty like it was merely a stepping stone,

but I am learning some days I will be asked what I’ve done with these hours,

I won’t know what to say except I survived them.

I breathed like I was not drowning
I accepted the kindness of strangers,

I let myself live,

I know it sounds so small
but maybe being okay
with nothing more than
“I’ve survived”
will be the mountain I climb today.

Breathe.

It’s heavy.