How to ride a rollercoaster
This week’s question is from myself:
What now?
I have opened and closed this newsletter a dozen times since Wednesday. I have written it angry, I have written it sad, I have written it powerfully, and I have written it feeling powerless. I have deleted a thousand words only to re-write those same thousand words, and delete them again.
I have written about the who, what, where, and the how and deleted it because, holy fuck there is enough of that out there and we don’t need more. I promise that I’m not adding to it. This week. I can make no promises about next week.
In the past few days I’ve wanted to be super kind to half the world and murder the rest of it, and I simply don’t trust myself get those halves right.
In the past few days I’ve felt hope and I’ve felt despair, sometimes simultaneously.
I’m reminded of one of the first things my therapist told me: “Your anger is justified, but your targeting sucks.” At this moment, I do not trust my targeting.
Right now, I feel like I’m riding a rollercoaster. The world’s shittiest rollercoaster. And rollercoaster rides aren’t events where you can make decisions. You just hang on. And you scream.
So, right now I am making no decisions beyond what to do for the next hour. I think I can handle that. Tomorrow I might be able to extend that. And by next week I may be able to do some longer term planning.
And that’s ok.
Eventually, we will have to do some long-term planning. Some of us will be ready earlier than others. Some of us will need more time. Some of us won’t have the privilege of waiting until we are ready, and my hope is that I will be ready soon enough to help them.
I am sure that in the next few years I’ll write in anger, and I’ll write in kindness. I’ll be feeling both. There will be times I am ready to fight, and times I’ll need to tap out. This is a tag-team sport.
As I’ve mentioned in this newsletter before, the best way to pick ourselves up off the floor is by helping to pick other people up off the floor.
Eventually I will be ready to be a helper. I am praying it is sooner than later. I believe it will be. I hope you’ll be ready too.
Know that I love you.
📰 Speaking of helping people: The NY Times Tech Guild is currently on strike for a decent contract. We don’t cross picket lines, and that includes letting your Wordle streak go. It’s ok. The guild has made some fun games you can play instead. There’s recipes too!
❓ Got a question you need answered? Lordy. I will try to answer it.
📙 We’re in the middle of getting all our books under one roof. First off, it was Erika’s Just Enough Research…
📕 …now the paperback of Design Is a Job is out. The really good news for you is that if you live outside the US (congrats) you won’t have to pay international shipping, since it’s all handled by Ingram. (also, that link gets you a massive discount.)
🎥 On Wednesday evening our daughter came over and we all watched Wolfwalkers, an animated movie that I totally missed when it came out in 2020 (was there something happening?) It’s charming, and the evidence of the human hand in the animation was incredibly soothing.
📢 Also, I love hearing from you. So if you’re getting something out of this newsletter, or ANY newsletter, hit reply and tell people.
🍉 Now, more than ever, please donate to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund.