Marching Orders
It’s the last day of the year, again, and I’m thinking about you.
I’m thinking about all of us, and the many, many things we’ve been through, both collectively and also individually. Where there is collective pain there is often splintering personal pain that goes unnamed and unannounced. And I want to tell you that you’re not alone. Also? I want to share with you a controversial opinion.
Remember how by late 2020, some people were like, “This is our New Normal,” and other people were like, “WE ARE YEARS AWAY FROM A NEW NORMAL, SHUT UP!”? Well, I believe our New Normal is here.
And it consists of knowing that everything is shit out there, but that there are many, many more good people in the world than in positions of power. That doesn’t sound great, but let me explain why it is:
Because now we know. Now we’ve acknowledged, we’ve agreed, that the shit going on is absolutely terrible, and that no one is coming to save us. There can be no more rational discussion around this point. (The discussion obviously exists in various places, but it ain’t rational.) We have clarity, in other words.
For me, the worst part of the early pandemic was the not knowing. I remember driving around, rolling the windows up if a car stopped next to mine and their windows were down. I remember insisting that our produce be washed with dish soap. And the constant pacing back and forth in the backyard while talking to friends thousands of miles away, reiterating things like, “We don’t know ANYTHING!” to each other.
We know a lot more now than we did then.
And don’t get me wrong, it’s still mostly grim as hell. But now we have our marching orders, as it were (and much as I hate the language of war, it continues to seem apt here). What are my marching orders? Generosity. Kindness. A willingness to show up in every situation as a person who loves people. To resist. To not obey in advance. To not fold.
To stand. With love.
That is my work, and I am not free to abandon it.
And now? Now I march.
What are your orders for 2025?
Love,
Emma