Happy Friday!
My name is Annaliese Griffin. I’m the editor of the Quartz Daily Obsession, and I have a bad attitude. Embracing it is my superpower.
I know some of you are bound to shake your heads and click away in disgust. Hear me out. I’m not advocating for using a global pandemic as an excuse to be unpleasant or mean. But when you stop casting about for the right lifehack, hobby, or homeschool schedule and admit that right now life is really hard, then everything becomes more bearable. There’s tremendous power in admitting that no, you’re not really okay.
I am writing this from a place of privilege: I have an enjoyable job I can do remotely, a comfortable home I can afford, a backyard where my kids go wild, and a supportive community. I honestly don’t know how single parents are keeping it together. My worries are amorphous and general, not specific and acute. But I’m still struggling, most days, and I’m done pretending otherwise.
The circumstances of quarantine, whether you’re lonely or desperately craving personal space, are like the unhappy families from Anna Karenina—each terrible in their own special way. My kids are two and five, and I want to be a great mom, and also a great employee, but to be even okay at either right now—let alone both at the same time—is more exhausting than it was having a new baby. It’s more intense than having a new baby and a toddler, and a job. All those lists of workouts, movies, and books to catch up on have alternately made me wonder at the time everyone else seems to have, feel full body rage, or want to cry.
Instead of seeing my negative emotions as a failure though, or something to fix, I’ve come to accept them as information. Being okay with not being okay allows me to be honest with myself and the other people in my life. It gives me the space to listen and commiserate instead of reflexively offering advice. My life is so boundary-less now that I need my bad attitude to tell me when to take a break, to carve out an hour for myself, or to say, “No, I can’t do that.” In an uncertain time, it’s one thing I can really trust.
Being happy is a choice, and I have decision fatigue. I have to make active choices to be happy—to do yoga and intense exercise that gets me out of my head and sweaty; to get enough sleep; to keep in touch with friends; to try new things and make new connections. Right now those choices are harder than usual to choose. But I’m also awash in decisions. Should I really go to the store this week? Is this much television okay? Can I continue to volunteer safely? Can I let my son pet the neighbor’s dog?
Decision fatigue is a real thing. It’s why Barack Obama filled his closet with just two different suit choices while he was president. “No matter how rational and high-minded you try to be, you can’t make decision after decision without paying a biological price,” John Tierney wrote in 2011. It takes energy to perform okay-ness. I’ve made the decision to let that filter drop most of the time, and truly, I get so much more done without it.
A brave face can be a terrifying mask. Last spring my daughter suffered a serious second-degree burn, at just 18 months. (She is completely fine now.) The worst part was the daily bandage change, during which I would do my best to comfort her. The first time, a social worker suggested I sing a favorite song to her. I got about 10 seconds in and realized I was confusing her by radically mismatching a sweet bedtime ritual with a painful medical experience. So instead, I looked in her eyes and said repeatedly, “This sucks, but it will be over soon and you’re going to be okay. This sucks.”
Pretending everything was normal, when it very much was not, freaked her out. It also showed her giving voice to negative emotions is unacceptable. Acknowledging that something sucks and you’re struggling is not the same as whining. Our trip to the burn unit was awful, and I didn’t have the emotional energy to pretend otherwise. Instead, I modeled a way to articulate those feelings, while remaining calm.
It’s okay to be not okay. When I read Chloe Cooney’s essay, “The parents are not alright,” something clicked into place for me. “I thought by the fourth week of social distancing we would have all settled into the new norm,” she writes. “But for my family (and others I’ve spoken to) that is not the case—things are harder than they were at the beginning. Harder because we’ve all accrued anxiety, stress, and sadness over this period.”
Likewise, in the first few weeks of life under lockdown, I spent a lot of time structuring our days, while also hitting daily work deadlines. I read articles and compiled lists of virtual experiences, set up elaborate art projects, and then felt like a crap parent when none of it worked as I’d hoped. Cooney acknowledges that her scenario—two parents with a stable income—is the best it gets at the moment, and her own struggle to cope fills her with self-doubt as well as deep empathy and concern for those with more intractable problems. Reading how “not alright” she was made me feel a little better.
Losing my goddamn mind here. Sometimes, even with the emotional off-gassing my baditude provides, I regrettably lose control over my emotions. Last weekend my husband was video-chatting with a friend who also has young kids, and had to abruptly disconnect when an activity I was doing with our kids devolved into a giant mess of potting soil and me yelling, unhinged.
Later, when I texted our friend to apologize, he commiserated, saying that he and his wife were trading off moments of unbridled fury, while trying to work and be parents. My unfiltered freakout was actually a moment of vulnerability that brought us closer. We’re all living through a difficult time together, and I hope that the permission to embrace your inner bad attitude helps you to get through.
Make the weekend special. Okay, I just spent an entire email railing against plucky advice. But, I have found it relatively easy and very rewarding to lean into making the weekend the weekend. Movie night, pizza, and popcorn are in heavy rotation. The real winner though has been this Smitten Kitchen recipe for cinnamon and sugar scones. They’re easy to make, look dramatically amazing, and taste even better. Make them your new weekend thing.