Like many people, I’m sheltering in place, and I’m wearing a mask when I have to go out. Recently, I’ve seen a lot of my neighbors posting comments along the lines of: “If you want to live in fear, go ahead. I choose to enjoy my life!”
The first time I saw this comment, my blood pressure spiked. “I’m not living in fear!” I snarled in my head (and then out loud to Mr. Ross). “I’m living in compassion.”
I do believe I’m living in compassion, that I’m staying home to protect the vulnerable, but now that I’ve had some time to think it over—and calm down—I’ve realized that while this is true, there’s some part of me that’s living in fear as well.
Because I figure, if I’m lucky, I may have another 50 years left in this lifetime, and I want to live the hell out of every single one of those years. I want to find out what happens to my three children. I want to hike the Pacific Crest Trail when I’m 80. I want to sit on my porch tomorrow and watch the hummingbirds flit through the plum tree.
I do not want to die alone on a ventilator.
I also don’t want anyone in my family to die, because I love them, and I want them to be beside me on my porch, or living happily wherever they choose to be.
So, yeah, maybe I am living in fear, but why should I feel shame about it? Fear is a human emotion. Evolutionarily, it’s what tells us to run from panthers and ax murderers. Fear is supposed to be what keeps us alive during a pandemic.
But here’s the thing: The people who mock me for sheltering in place seem to be living in fear, too. It’s just that their fear is different from mine. They seem to be more afraid of the downturn in the economy, of losing jobs, of the government trampling our rights, and, to me, their fear looks a lot like rage.
I’m afraid of those things. In fact, I may very well lose my job, and I worry that without my job, we’ll lose our house, and if we lose our house, I wonder how we’ll ever afford to live in this beautiful place. It’s all really, really scary. Still, my fear of dying with what I have, or accidentally killing someone else, outweighs my fear of living a long life of poverty. For me, death is scarier than poverty; it’s scarier than almost everything else. I imagine evolution doesn’t care about how much money is in my bank account.
When I start to go down the thought spiral of what I could lose, I have to take deep breaths, close my eyes, and remind myself that I’m alive, and I’m safe, and my family is safe.
Maybe other people don’t fear death because they believe they’re going to heaven, and heaven lasts always. I don’t have that comfort.
I had hoped, perhaps naively, that Americans would rally around the pandemic as a common enemy, that we’d stop tweeting our red and blue screeds and start taking care of each other because it’s in our best interest to care for one another. Whether we like it or not, we are all reliant on this interdependent web of existence of which we are a part.
Maybe there’s still time for that.
Along with my fear, I choose to live in hope.
Meanwhile, I’m trying really hard—oh, how difficult it is!—to see the human fear behind the hate and to choose to respond with compassion. Even though we may vehemently disagree, we are connected by our fear, our humanity.
There’s so much more I want to write: about how I, too—as someone who survived a suicide attempt, grew up with domestic violence, lived below the poverty level as a single mom—am deeply concerned about the stress that sheltering in place causes, about the effect of a failing economy on an already broken system of care; about how everyone should have access to medical insurance if the plan is to choose the economy over our health, about how I—as a member of a Gold Star family and the wife of a veteran—see those memes of soldiers giving their lives so we could be free, and how we should be willing to give our lives, too, and I respectfully disagree because I don’t believe a great general would sacrifice one life needlessly when there’s another way to go into battle.
But I’ve already taken enough of your time.
So, I’ll end with the words of my beloved UUs, whom I miss terribly: As we go forth, may we carry the flame of peace and love until we meet again. Blessed be.
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