Posting through the apocalypse? Attractive but unsustainable.
You can only make jokes about how everything is terrible, and the world is ending for so long. At some point it becomes *too much* and you gotta move on. It’s not that the world ISN’T ending or that everything has STOPPED being terrible, it’s that joking about it doesn’t work anymore. So, you take guitar lessons. You dye your hair purple. You volunteer. You teach your dog to high five. You binge classic horror films. You get off socials. You get on vodka. You do whatever you can do to feel something other than despair.
For my part, I cannot stop myself from googling ‘climate anxiety’ five times a day. The advice is as you’d expect. Go for a walk. Focus on something else. Breathe. That one made me laugh. Breathe! (Make sure you check the air quality index first.)
Sometimes I get fixated on researching gluten-free baking or reading about Tudor history or learning how to dry my hair with the Curly Girl Method. That helps for an hour or so. What doesn’t help, what I’m realizing has never ever helped, is making dumb jokes online or reading dumb jokes online. Scrolling. Even reading other people’s funny posts can make me feel hopeless. It’s like looking into a funhouse mirror only it’s not the playful mirror you remember from childhood carnivals. This funhouse mirror was written by Stephen King and directed by Jordan Peele.
So, I’m walking, I’m reading, I’m playing games. I’m popping into downward facing dog in the kitchen several times a day. I’m staying up late laughing and dancing to 90s music with my loved ones. I’m writing and someday I’ll share what I’m working on. I’m doing whatever it takes until I feel better.
I’m taking care of myself, and I hope you are too.
Xo, K