Five years ago I wrote a book. I was still reeling from the grief and disappointment of losing the 2016 election, trying to find ways to convert my life experience into something meaningful and helpful. Though the pandemic hadn’t yet started, I could see how the world was already starting to burn. I believed I had both the ability and responsibility to do something about it. I bought into the #girlboss entrepreneur meme, thinking writing a book could help me build a platform, show my expertise, make a difference.
I knew that 90% of selling a book is self-promotion, but I felt strongly that just getting people to sit in a room and listen to me read would never amount to anything. So instead I designed a new kind of “Town Hall” that would bring people together to talk about their dreams for the future.
Working in pairs and small groups, people got to reflect on a series of questions and share their answers with others in the room.
Most of the questions were neutral or aspirational (Why are you here? What are your values?), but one invited everyone to name their ghosts:
What are you afraid of?
Over the course of four months, I listened to hundreds of people answer this question, their answers extending from the deeply personal — death, losing my job, being alone — to the universal: a second term for Donald Trump, climate change.
As humans, we’re not practiced at sitting with the difficult questions. We much prefer happy endings and good news. But offering someone else the chance to hold space for the fears that haunt you offers someone else the chance to be with you fully in your humanity.
As I facilitated these group conversations, I spent a lot of time listening to other people’s fears without sharing many of my own. The truth is, I didn’t yet know what I should be afraid of.
Before I became a mother, my life felt like it was largely under my control. I could make choices under my own steam, and apply myself to their successful execution. When I became pregnant, my world started to fracture. While I was celebrated as a life-bearer (as nearly all pregnant people are), I was punished for being an unreliable human resource. The law doesn’t protect contractors from pregnancy discrimination, and so I was without recourse, the #girlboss power play come back to bite me. I was unemployed for more than 12 months, from when my son was born in May 2022, until I received a job offer in November 2023.
I thought that things had finally turned a corner, that the inescapable stress of not having enough money to live would finally be over. Turned out, I was wrong.
Over the last few months, my life has been overrun with fears, not just threatened, but realized. A close relation has been hospitalized with an undiagnosed illness that may or may not be fatal. I lost the job I’d worked so hard to find, and with it, the ability to afford childcare for my two-year-old child. I refinanced my mortgage to consolidate the debt I’d accrued during the 12 months of unemployment, contingent on being employed, only to learn that losing my job so close to the signing could compromise the loan.
I am a highly educated, skilled human. I was raised to believe I could be anything I want to be, though in many ways, this has turned out to be a benevolent unwitting lie. Forget about “having it all.” Could I just have enough?
When the infrastructure of daily life breaks down, it makes visible how brittle and precarious human life on earth really is. How can I find a job if I don’t have childcare? How can I perform a job when care for a sick relation throws the family’s time and attention into turmoil?
The perverse upside of being unemployed are the long hours I get to spend caring for my son, watching him learn new words, embark on new summer adventures, and taste new foods. He sits in the sand on the edge of a lake slapping his hands into the water, and I try to seal the expression of both wonder and delight on his face in my mind. He trails behind me as we search the bushes for blueberries, clapping him hands with joy, yelling “Mo Bish!” – his word for berries. I wish I didn’t to spend frantic hours bent over my computer banging out resumes and freelance contracts in hopes of racking up enough pennies to pay the bills. I wish I could simply focus my time and attention on enjoying summer with my son and supporting my family as we move through the grueling experience of an endurance encounter with America’s healthcare system.
Your support makes a difference.
What am I afraid of?
I’m afraid of not having enough money to pay the mortgage. I’m afraid of what happens in two more months of not having a job. I’m afraid of death – not my own, but of my elders, whose lives can be reduced to a hospital bed in the blink of an eye. I’m afraid of living in a world that demands that each of us has to just grin and bear it, to keep pretending everything is okay, even when it’s not.
I’m afraid we won’t stop pretending before it’s too late. I’m afraid of what happens when everything breaks, which it seems like, soon enough, it will.
Aren’t you?