Waking up to the headline “Roe v. Wade seems to be on the cusp of falling” in my New York Times newsletter was a disorienting nightmare. As the news started to sink in as I began my day, the doom scrolling started, the tears started, the anger overflowed. I spent thirty minutes ranting to my mom on the phone. I thought about what I should say to my team, if anything, if they were feeling as listless as I was.
I donated to the Lilith Fund. I texted friends. I looked up local organizations I could get involved with. I wanted to crawl back in bed. I couldn’t think.
A blessed no-meeting day where I’d planned to knock out one big project after another became a battle of willpower that kept knocking me down.
In the evening, I told myself I’d eat and then go for a walk. But after a bagel dinner (anything more than a toaster sounded exhausting) I spent the next hour procrastinating. I felt dehydrated and tired and I wanted to read fanfic and stay inside. I felt awful. Finally, I got up. We’re doing a give back week at work and today is Trash Tuesday: Pick up some trash in your neighborhood. I figured I could at least do a short walk, the equivalent of an around the block, and pick up a few pieces of trash before the sunset.
As I started walking, plastic bag in hand, I planned the detour from my normal route that would cut my walk short. On top of everything, it was cold out, in the forties in early May. But then I didn’t take it. I planned another one a little further down the road, thinking I could do a slightly bigger loop but still half of my normal walk. But a half-mile into my walk, the movement started to do its job. It was beautiful out in the twilight, despite the cold. The fresh air cleansing. And as my plastic bag filled up I felt good about doing something to improve this land that I loved so much.
Pretty soon I was committed to doing my full walk, as usual. It helped that I was listening to the end of Glennon Doyle’s latest podcast (an interview with Chanel Miller) and then picking up an audiobook I started yesterday (Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life by Christie Tate).
Coincidentally both the podcast and the audiobook talked about taking a bath, and how sometimes that can be the next right thing. So when I got home I drew the bath with my lavender bubbles and re-watched a Miraculous Ladybug episode (Glaciator 2, which in another coincidence, I’ve only ever watched in the bath).
I feel better. Not great — today was challenging, to put it mildly. I’m sure I could doom spiral all over again and will in the future, but I feel . . . regulated? Taken care of for now.
It’s back to the basics as always: go outside, move, hydrate, and hold space for yourself.
With Love,
Natalie