The burden of uncertainty
Part of the burden we are left with in the aftermath of the chaos we have just lived through is that many things we took for granted now feel uncertain. Everything requires navigation - a moment of screwing up courage. It is energy-sapping to live in this state all the time.
Will the future be better than the past? I used to think that was guaranteed, and I cannot think so any longer. Of course I am older now myself so less of the future includes me which might be part of my problem.
A recommendation if you’re having trouble getting to sleep because of racing thoughts is to meditate on your blessings (or count them, I guess, as they jump over a little fence). My life contains many blessings so last night I tried to quiet my monkey mind with a count.
And I kept encountering a realization that since the destabilizing experiences of the last three years, of lockdowns, racial reckonings, wide-scale economic and social displacement, an actual attempt to violently overthrow the government, and God-knows-what-all-else, blessings are harder to tote up in an uncomplicated way.
The blessing of a roof over our heads? Or an over-investment in an illiquid asset that we couldn’t carry or sell in the event that the Cossacks really do ride up behind us and we have to grab our passports and run for the border. NOTE: two generations prior to mine, the Cossacks rode up behind my ancestors, who grabbed their passports and ran for the border. My paternal grandparents were Jews from Belarus who came to America to escape the pogroms.
The blessing of actually having some money put by in an investment account? Those dollars have been bouncing up and down like a yo-yo for the last several years, shrinking as often as they’ve grown, and we now have just about 3% fewer of them than we did three years ago, while we’ve been adding to the pile steadily that whole time.
The blessing of living in what I will always believe is one of the most beautiful cities on earth, my home of Chicago? We are in a mayoral battle right now in which we are, as far as I can see, deciding whether public education still matters, and whether we think teachers are greedy who don’t want to live an impoverished old age. Building a strong public school system and allowing those who teach our children to retire with dignity were things we used to take as given, as a universal good. How did we get here? My city is bending under the burdens of disinvestment, disagreement, decades of racism, violence mostly among the young, and all the hollowing out that COVID brought. I do not know what the future will bring us here, though I do know that we’ve weathered many struggles before the ones that currently beset us here.
Some blessings are clearer. A husband I adore. A son who is my absolute favorite person on the earth (sorry, husband, facts are facts). There have been enough losses in the last few years (daughter, mother) that I know none of this is secured forever. I believe our love will endure always, and that is an unequivocal blessing.
On a walk with said husband yesterday I realized that part of my mood was driven by yesterdays weather. Grey skies, clouds low, snow and rain circling in bursts. Chicago is at it’s peak dreariness. No color anywhere, nothing blooming. But soon it will be April and the migratory birds will start to arrive. They are endlessly varied and bright, visible with binoculars for a few weeks between when they first appear and when the trees leaf out. They will dart and sing and gorge their tiny bodies on gnats. Another uncomplicated blessing.
We live among a collection of friends who are hopeful, cynical, funny, young, old, Brown, Black, white, from all backgrounds, who worship many Gods, one God by many names, no God at all. They are, taken individually and altogether, a profound blessing.
The daffodils I planted last fall are well up now. A few more warm days will coax them open. Each one will be a blessing when it comes.
We will live without certainty because we must. There is still so much to be grateful for while waiting for sleep to find us.