Let's Take Our Temps

Good morning everyone and happy Tuesday! This is the day that I always make a point to publish a SHERO article that everyone can access that tries to hit on something on which we should be focused. But today, I am faced with an unusual proposition: the news cycle has slowed to a crawl (thank God) and I have been recovering from a break-through case of Covid for the last two weeks.

I keep getting this random fever that makes me miserable every day, but then breaks like clockwork. As someone who is now on her third round of Covid, I have become obsessed with differentiating between each version I have had, as if it will give me some insight into why any of this is happening at all. After days of feeling so much better, these fever spikes have really dinged my spirit.

I also figure that since I feel so rusty, you might be feeling the same way. The thing is: I am feeling out of practice in nearly every area of my life and it is a feeling I do not enjoy. I am not accustomed to taking long breaks, so I think it is wise not to be too hard on myself, regardless of whether I wish things were different. Sadly, patience and surrender are just not my jam.

I took many long breaks from Twitter over the holidays, which is a very unusual feeling. Whenever I would check back in, I felt a huge sense of overwhelming exhaustion, rather than a sense that people were choosing to rest and recover. Despite the many blessings we all no doubt enjoy, we are all hurting and we have been for years. I am most interested in respecting this feeling rather than fighting it, so that I can build my pace back up to what it needs to be and not push myself through something just to get it done, carrying the weight of it on my back along the way.

This pandemic has made it perfectly clear that we have to change the way we think about living and we have to do it now. Like so many of you, I tend to act proactively and put my passion into making the future better to keep foreseeable emergencies at bay. That is what I have been trained to do as a lawyer. But, now we sit in a collective bed of our own making, that half of us tried to avoid, due to the refusal of half of this country to even acknowledge certain undeniable realities.

This is no longer about having the foresight or even the desire to keep us all safe — this is about knowing what we need to do, and being shackled to the dead weight of ignorance that won’t allow us to aptly move in any right direction. Despite growing in so many ways personally and professionally, I feel perplexed emotionally and stuck in the current clog of our Democracy, a feeling that only confuses me and makes me more tired.

As we move ahead this week, chugging slowly toward the anniversary of one of the lowest points in American History, I want to remind you to be kind to yourself and to tell you that if your hope and optimism is continually muddled by neverending sickness and destruction in the world, you are not alone. I also want to take a moment to introduce you to the newest member of the Vanderpool family, who looks remarkably like Gizmo the Mogwai:

Meet Poe Vanderpool in all of her Tortie glory.

I will be launching my SHERO podcast on Callin this week, where I can take live calls directly from you and we can talk about anything we like — there is no better time for more connection. I am also excited about the opportunities to get into more complex legal and political discussions as we proceed through the next year, something that is often difficult to do here or on Twitter.

With all of this fatigue and lingering sickness, I am still incredibly excited and hopeful. Maybe it’s just time to accept this will be the state of things for a while longer. Regardless, I’m going to keep looking for ways to tap into more hope and energy even if none of those things feel particularly close. I really hope you will join me.

Love,

Amee

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Amee Vanderpool writes the SHERO Newsletter and is an attorney, published author, contributor to newspapers and magazines, and analyst for BBC radio. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.

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