As I sat in my writing room one morning a few days ago, early autumn light pooled at my feet. With the window open, the air was fresh and cool, relegating a long summer of heat and humidity to months past.

Over the years, my daughter—who qualifies as a millennial—has developed a flair for the dramatic. In actuality, it’s an attribute that we share.

When I turned sixty-two in 2015, I didn’t expect to be pondering once again what I wanted to be “when I grew up.”

When the e-mail invite to a reunion of neighborhood Moms dropped into my inbox three weeks back, I’d marveled at the timing of the event.

After writing my most recent blog on toxic shame (Refusing to be Made Small, which ran on July 21, 2021), emotions about my own history of belittlement nagged at me.

Cringeworthy. The word described so well the scene I’d encountered at my go-to neighborhood nail salon a couple of weeks back.

I had no way of knowing one afternoon last week, when I stepped onto my deck in the backyard, that my mood would soon be soaked in worry. Or that a New York Times article on children’s mental health would ignite such a change in my emotions.

One recent afternoon, moments after I’d ended what had been an easy-going telephone conversation, an unexpected wave of trepidation swept over me. I’d been contacted by the director of a women’s professional networking organization and had happily accepted an invitation to co-present a webinar on post-pandemic anxiety.

Not long ago, while steering my car home after a lunch with three women friends from childhood, I replayed in my mind the many highlights of the day. How fortunate I felt to have these “peeps” in my life, others who knew me in ways that few did or could. More than a decade ago we had begun a biannual tradition: spring and fall—and we’d never missed a single one—until the arrival of COVID, which made this particular gathering celebrating fifty-six years of friendship all the more special.

Like so many others, I am emotionally weary from a year marked by pandemic loss, social upheaval and the politics of rage. I am frazzled by so much separation and strife. Gravitating toward conversation that is nuanced, rather than that which is often polarized, I discover that I crave quiet. Nevertheless, my commitment to being a courier of encouragements and courtesies—a life-long pledge informed by a childhood encounter—may be at an all-time high.

Like so many others, I am emotionally weary from a year marked by pandemic loss, social upheaval and the politics of rage. I am frazzled by so much separation and strife. Gravitating toward conversation that is nuanced, rather than that which is often polarized, I discover that I crave quiet. Nevertheless, my commitment to being a courier of encouragements and courtesies—a life-long pledge informed by a childhood encounter—may be at an all-time high.

When my husband and I sat across the breakfast table two mornings ago, I should have just copped to the truth at the outset: I had, in fact, been trying to avoid the question he’d been asking repeatedly since we’d arrived at our country “cabin” the week before, the space in which we’d spent so much time relaxing together as companions.

I hadn’t been thinking of Mr. Rogers or his neighborhood when my cellphone pinged one recent afternoon. Yet, once I’d tapped my phone’s screen and read the text that scrolled by, an image of benevolent Fred came to mind —perhaps because some weeks earlier I’d watched a documentary on his life and work. Still, I wasn’t all that surprised to find myself thinking of Mr. R.,  as the message from my niece centered around a kiddie-dilemma. And, as an advocate for children’s voices being heard, who better to mentally conjure up when solving a kid issue than the psychic spirit of public television’s listener-in-chief. 

A call-to-action email popped up in my inbox several weeks ago with an “ask” that seemed as reasonable as it was straightforward: a national non-profit wanted clinical psychologists to volunteer therapy services to frontline healthcare workers experiencing compassion fatigue. “CF” has been described as the “cost of caring” for others. Participation in an effort aimed at ameliorating pandemic related depression, anxiety, social withdrawal, sleep disturbance and a host of other symptoms known as “burnout” initially struck me as a no-brainer. Of course I would help.

A New York Times opinion piece on the stresses of pandemic parenting prompted more than the need for a second cup of coffee during my breakfast. “Mothers Are Losing It All Over” set my mind down my own path as a Mom.

I opened up my laptop and stared at the screen in disbelief. There, in bold type, was a message from our local health department confirming that I had been approved to receive my first COVID vaccination the very next day. I knew that none of the other “1-B’s” in my Illinois social circle had yet succeeded in securing one of these “golden tickets—which is the most current media slang for a vaccine “win.” I leaned forward, unable to recall ever scoring anything bigger than a dime-store cake pan at a county fair, and read the message twice more.

Many of us drag some neurotic childhood behavior with us well into adulthood, even when doing so serves no rational purpose. My own standout habit was to spend decades adhering to a practice of using only what I had “on hand” to finish a project, repair an object, or do something that should have been a no-brainer. The problem for me was that “on hand” meant that I rarely had the right tools necessary for completing the task I was going to undertake. Being stocked up on the right equipment and supplies in anticipation of what I might need was simply not how I functioned, despite having had the time, and physical and financial resources, to do so. Until I entered my fifties, I considered this pattern unlikely to change. After all, I’d reasoned, even if I didn’t do things with precision, I was at least a master at getting a chore done.

My Dad died nine years ago, at age ninety-four. Since then, I’ve marked that January anniversary with rituals that move me. Every year, for instance, I light a candle and put it close to a picture of him that I keep on my desk. I lay flowers at his headstone, grateful that I had him in my life for as long as I did, and thankful at the same time that the sadness his absence evokes no longer presses upon me as hard as it once did. Yet, at the same time that I honor my father in these ways, the shell that protects me against unwanted thoughts about my own mortality cracks a bit wider. How do you hope to be remembered? an unexpected voice whispers in my mind and I have no answer. This year, however, with his date only a short time away, that voice has become insistent. Perhaps it is tired of waiting for a definitive reply.

Recently, I came across an article which suggested that, for some people, listening to another person share a dream is like being subjected to a play-by-play version of a family vacation. Boring—at best. How can that be? I wondered. I didn’t question the tedious aspects associated with hearing a holiday commentary that goes on and on. That part of the equation I understood all too well. A neighbor’s recent recitation about her cruise along the coast of Italy reminded me of how, beyond learning that it was pleasant and restorative, such a litany becomes a big yawn.