For those of us under shelter in place, it is HARD. We all have different reasons for struggling with this and THAT’S OK. One of the ways to deal with the insanity of change is to talk about all the newness. Sometimes, this newness can actually cause people to remember long buried memories. It happened to me this afternoon.
There I was gaming online ,when I decided to turn on my Spotify playlist. (Background info: as a school based counselor I made a Spotify playlist of kid appropriate songs includingL Disney, 90’s pop, 90’s rock, musical/movie soundtracks) As I’m rocking out to some Lenny Kravitz, followed by Smash Mouth I am overcome with a realization: This could have been my life in the late 90’s/early 2000’s except for one thing: I am expected to adhere to mainstream female standard. So that meant: 1) can’t be too nerdy (have to be able to fit in with mainstream people well enough to converse about currently popular media but if you’re “too into a thing” it is looked down upon.) which has a clause of a) brown people who are nerdy are seen as “soft” or “white” and 2) can’t have too many interests in the “masculine” realm. So, given that I had already expressed my interest in motorcycles (Thanks Jessica Alba/Dark Angel!) I couldn’t afford ANOTHER interest that set me apart from the gender conforming female I was surrounded with…
Having this realization strike me after 3 whole decades of living, while definitely useful was also jarring. How did I not see this earlier? Why does this seem to be a universal “outsider” experience? A flood of questions drown me then I remember: everything is different now. It has been for a while and we are still finding ways to deal and finding out more about ourselves (our coping mechanisms, frequency of certain thoughts etc.). AND IT IS COMPLETELY NORMAL. Yeah, it might require some extra support to process this newly discovered information but hey, we have time. We have to learn to be gentle with ourselves and relearn this curiosity we had as kids, except this time apply it to ourselves.
BUT IF ALL YOU’RE DOING IS SURVIVING DURING THESE TRYING TIMES: THAT IS OKAY!