People are Pressure Cookers too!
This morning I realized, we’re like pressure cookers. You come in a certain size, and your human experience is perceived through this finite threshold for stress and emotion before it expands outside of you. And as a person who resents ever being vulnerable in front of others, it often finds ways out that surprise me. I’ve long joked that I have a copious range of coping skills, from consistent therapy, binge drinking, excessive whining and acupuncture, it’s really true. I chose to cope from a toolbox of tools running the gamut on the health-o-meter.
Last night, my weapon of choice was a lovely combo of half a bottle of white wine while I’m cooking dinner, topped with half of a bottle of red wine after dinner with cookies and an emotional jolt of a 2 hour This Is Us premiere. I tell you what, it didn’t go great. I was sobbing watching Randall experience the show’s interpretation of the current hellscape we’re all living in. The only reasonable explanation I could give my future husband who sat next to me and watched me sob was, “I’m just so sad for America right now.”
And that’s partially true. It’s been an incredibly painful year for so so so many people around the world. It’s living day to day against the background of a multifaceted macro shit storm. I was sobbing for all of it at once.
My individual experience alone encompasses:
1. I’m adjusting to our entire organization transitioning to WFH as a senior executive with two peers on parental leave
2. I’m trying to learn a new skill set and become a Pilates teacher
3. During a global pandemic
4. Navigating global economic forces
5. While owning a global client portfolio
6. As I’m charged with aggressively growing said global portfolio
7. While we knock out a home renovation
8. And plan a wedding, which may or may not happen according to plan due to a global pandemic
9. All of which we need to figure out how to fund on our own
10. Including all divorced parents
11. As we have continued reduced access to our village
12. Walking into the scariest election season of my life
13. During a global pandemic and elevated social anxiety, for someone who already has anxiety
14. While my hometown burns and my mom is packing a go bag
15. And my Dad forgot my birthday for a week
And while none this is insurmountable; it still makes me feel emotions and I’m finally realizing that they’re ok to have. Because honestly, what I did last night, was disassociate by having 5 glasses of wine and it made it ok to tap into my feelings on “behalf” of someone else, my close personal friend, Randall Pearson (a fictional black man). Instead of beating myself up today and letting the long running “are you an alcoholic ??? conversation” run my brain this morning, I had an epiphany. You’re going to feel things, let them out or they will find a way out themselves after you fill the moat of the wall you built around your heart with enough pinot!
I feel myself regressing during these difficult times, but I think being pushed back into this head space is helping me grow my approach in how I respond moving forward. From here I’m seeking space for the things that I know support me and bolster me, I need grounding, I need connection with that’s really going on and allowing myself to have my own narrative instead of leaning on dramadies or plucking nose hairs to bring on the water works.