All the Shit, All the Fans

I went "just-in-case" grocery shopping again tonight, for what feels like umpteenth time this year.  What's the impending disaster du jour? Civil unrest as the United States Presidential election begins to unfold in less than 24 hours. Now, I fully recognize the alarmist nature of the last sentence, and I will be the first to tell you that tinfoil hats chafe too much to wear all the time...but I can't seem to turn off the urge to prepare, to brace, and to hunker down. It feels almost like nesting before the arrival of a new baby, only instead of a baby, you're expecting a shit storm. I don't know if it's the pandemic that rages around us or the social turmoil in nearly every US city for months now, but I just felt compelled to grab more than a few essentials and hurry home to wait out whatever nastiness erupts from the political volcano that's been spewing vitriol for a year. 

As I donned my mask, wiped down my cart, and proceeded to navigate store isles with now ever-present bare shelves, I could feel my heart rate start to tick up. I never used to get nervous at the grocery store, only now that we're living in a dystopian hellscape where other humans are nothing more than viral hosts and every surface feels contaminated. Tonight's trip felt even more like a descent into madness as I saw other folks grabbing non-perishables with a zealousness that belied their blank stares at one another from 6 feet apart. I could tell from the contents of their carts that they, too, were getting ready for some potential threat, whether real or imagined. 

All these threats have had a cumulative effect and as a society, we seem to be stuck in a perpetual state of fight or flight. We're all swimming through an adrenaline sea that's fed by 24-hour news cycles and BREAKING NEWS ALERTS. Some of these problems are not new (social injustices like racism, poverty, healthcare disparities, etc) but they've been magnified by the COVID-19 crisis. 2020 feels like standing downwind while all the shit hits all the proverbial fans. 

It's getting harder to drum up nuggets of optimism these days, but I still try. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised and the election will go off without a hitch. Maybe the National Guard won't be deployed to keep the peace after ballots are cast. Maybe I'm just stuck in a doomsday mode because this year has been, well, full of doom. Maybe I'm just trying to exert some feeble control over my own microcosm as the world spins violently off kilter. Maybe we all are. Maybe that's why I can't find half of the groceries I set out for. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hello Kevin

Image
If you've followed along with this blog with any consistency (not imply that I write with any,) then you will have noticed that when my anxiety flares, so too does my ability to write about it. A hefty price for creativity if you ask me, but I think it has more to do with need than expression. When I'm sprinting through my thoughts at a feverish pace, writing allows me to stop and take a proverbial breather. Today I am in the weeds after yet another sleepless night. I've been battling myself all day and I'm learning that the less sleep I get, the more weapons my mind is able to wield against me. Or perhaps it's flipped and I just have less with which to shield myself against the sharp blade of fear. Either way, it...well, sucks. It takes monumental energy to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you're ill at-ease. Throw in extended sleep deprivation and the energy to constantly do so is depleted to the point where there is no more elevation, just a fleeting
Read more

Sean Higgins Kane

Yesterday, I had the honor eulogizing a man who I loved deep in my soul in front of his family, which also owns a large piece of my heart. Afterwards, I was asked to share my remarks by some who attended his memorial services and my blog seemed the easiest way to do so. I don't have the heart to say more now. Below is the eulogy: For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Jen Mulato and Sean was a brother to my husband and I in every way that mattered. He adopted us, as he did so many people, 12 years ago and we’ve been family ever since.  When sitting down to write this, I admit to being overwhelmed by the responsibility of trying to adequately honor Sean Kane. The breadth of his being was simply too magnificent to summarize.  As I sat listening to his Ultimate Spotify Playlist, his soundtrack for life, I struggled to think of the best way to approach eulogizing a man I still can’t bear the thought of losing. It took me several tries to get it right.  At first, I thought I wou
Read more

Living With Anxiety

Image
Because I have anxiety, a lot of my time is spent managing fear responses. Fear is at the root of anxiety, and when you've got generalized anxiety, you find that you are afraid much more than your peers during your day to day existence. Being afraid is uncomfortable, but deescalating your responses to fear is downright exhausting. I always think people can see it when they look at me. What's actually pretty shocking, though, is that most people would never know that I have clinical anxiety. Despite the battles that rage in my head, I usually appear calm and pleasant on the outside. People very close to me know my tells, but for the most part, I carry this burden silently. I actually hid it from myself for a long time. Actually, I didn't know until I was 34 years old that I had anxiety, at all. I knew I was sort of high strung, but not that I was caught up in a cycle of fear and poor coping mechanisms. I've always been what I would call fearful, or nervous. I would fear
Read more