Yesterday, while I was enjoying yet another activity designed to help me avoid and procrastinate writing this blog post, I was stopped in my tracks..I hit the pause button on the podcast I was listening to and I let tears stream down my face. I felt personally attacked. I was drinking my English breakfast tea (because I’m old now and apparently coffee makes me sick) and intently listening to a conversation with Chef Tom Colicchio about the restaurant industry in the time of Covid-19.
This Fresh Air episode seemed like a safe bet, it wouldn’t challenge me or be a danger to my comfortable inaction. Instead it was like a slap to the face, an accusation and a challenge to my state of mind over the last few weeks. I was doing everything I could to put off something I know I needed to (and deep down wanted to) accomplish because I couldn’t find a way to feel more and lean into certain emotions that don’t always feel comfortable for me, especially during this time in our collective history.
Terry Gross asked Colicchio about his work helping to feed ground zero workers following the attacks of 9/11 and he began to discuss the fact that his wedding, to his now wife of 19 years, had been scheduled four days after the towers fell. He said,“We came very close to postponing the wedding, we didn’t..and we didn’t because there was something that I wore around my neck and there was a little saying on it and it was actually the same saying that was inscribed on my wedding ring and when we told the Rabbi that was set to marry us that we were thinking about postponing, she said ‘look inside your ring’ and the inscription was, ‘don’t postpone joy,’ and so we went ahead with the wedding.” Terry’s follow up question was this, “Was it possible to experience joy so shortly after 9/11 when you were working and living in New York?” Colicchio replied after pausing for a moment and said, “You know it was. It was because there was something inside of us that said we can’t let the people that did that, we can’t let them win. We were able to feel joy when we could.” He went on to say that you can feel joy now too even as horrible as the current situation is, “I still have to be able to feel joy because that is the only way we are going to be able to get through this, I pick and choose my moments. You have to find those moments of joy and be strong for those around you. You have to find those moments, that’s, I think, what makes us human, I think you can have multiple emotions at any given time and I think you need to explore the whole range of emotions right now to get through.”
There I was crying in my tea with NO MORE excuses. I’ve been floating around in this state of worry, anger, sadness, confusion and loneliness and I’ve been ignoring joy, trying to shut it out because it didn’t feel like the right or appropriate time for it. There is space for all of these emotions..some even at the same time, just like the movie Inside Out:)
A few years ago Jarrett and I took a trip up to Door County, WI with two of our closest friends. We had traveled there before for a camping trip, but this excursion really opened our eyes to the natural beauty and inherent charm of the peninsula. We started talking about how someday we would love to own property there, but it wasn’t until we started using our third floor loft as a successful Airbnb that we began to think more seriously about it. We worked every weekend shift, we put off trips and we saved every penny we could to make this dream a reality. We found properties, fell in love with them, made plans, lost the properties, felt disappointment, gave up...and then started all over again.
Finally after we felt like maybe it was time to give up on that dream for awhile our real estate agent said she knew of something coming on the market that might be in our price range. It was a very small cottage that needed a lot of work and honestly smelled terrible, but it was in a desirable area and the land that it was situated on was beautiful, I fell in love with it almost immediately. So we decided to try one more time, we put in an offer and began to dream and design again. We decided that we would move in temporarily with Jarrett’s parents in Green Bay, making us a little closer to the property while we renovated it, and also so we could save money by renting out our apartment in Milwaukee on Airbnb. We began talking about building our own home on the land and maybe starting a family. This all seemed possible and it was exciting to think about our future in this way.
Enter Coronavirus.
A week before we were set to close on the property, and a month before we planned to move, Jarrett and I both lost our jobs. Jobless and worried we left our closing appointment with another mortgage and lots of uncertainty, it didn’t seem like a time to celebrate. In addition all of our Airbnb bookings vanished along with anything resembling the lives we used to lead. We packed up my van and Jarrett’s car with everything we possibly could and decided to start our move early. It felt bizarre and unnerving to leave our jobs, our home, our town and all of the people we loved there without a morsel of ritual or tradition, no closure, no catharsis, it was just over with no farewell. The restaurant that employed me doesn’t even exist anymore.
Now here are some good things...things I try to remind myself to be grateful for everyday. We are healthy thus far, we have incredibly supportive parents and siblings, Jarrett is now employed full-time, our friends who have reached out countless times with love and encouragement, our wonderful dogs and, yes...the cottage. Something that I haven’t felt I have the right to share, or the words to express it properly without sounding privileged or entitled, maybe I will sound that way, I hope not. In this moment in time especially, I feel shame for still feeling excited and joyful about the cottage project, regardless of the work it took to reach this exact point.
But, just like every other emotion in the human experience we can’t postpone joy. Joy is essential and it’s okay to feel everything right now, grief, joy, hopelessness, excitement, anger, contentment, loneliness...you need the negative to feel the positive. We don’t know when things will get back to “normal,” but we can’t wait to feel things fully even in these dark moments.
When I start the drive up to our land I begin to feel a peace I don’t feel at any other time, when I’m standing on the land and all I can hear is the wind blowing through the boughs of the big birch trees I feel contentment, when I see an owl fly over, or simply hear all the birds singing, I feel comfort and when I watch the sunset I feel small and yet powerful. When I plan and design something that I know will be beautiful and functional, and I know that I will be able to share it with others, I am fulfilled, however briefly. This process despite its strange and unprecedented timing brings me joy at a moment when I so desperately need it.
Don’t postpone joy.