fbpx
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Sign up for Free Newsletter
  • Print Edition
    • Get Home Delivery
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Customer Support
    • Submit A News Tip
    • Where’s My Paper?
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
Hudson Valley One
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
Hudson Valley One
No Result
View All Result

It’s not okay

by Susan Barnett
August 21, 2020
in Village Voices
0
The enemy of perfect

A Washington Post article just popped up in my email that was remarkably well-timed.

“We are not okay, and it’s okay,” the description said. The article was an interview with mental-health professionals who think America’s tendency toward positivity might be bad for us right now.

They described people trying to act like everything was okay, or will soon be okay, as forcing someone to eat ice cream when the thought of ice cream makes you sick.

We’re afraid to send our children to school, and we’re afraid not to. We’re afraid to go to work, and we’re afraid not to. We’re afraid of the future, and we’re not wrong to be.

We are cracking under the pressure, and it’s perfectly understandable.

I’d just gotten off the phone with a local attorney who got a nasty email from one of our clients who was reacting to what he’d heard was a pile of unaddressed papers related to his house sale.

Where did the rumor come from? An agent involved in the sale sent up a flare after her client told her that was the case.

The only problem was, no one knows where the rumor began. It apparently wasn’t true.

Meanwhile, I had texts from two other clients concerned about their own real-estate transactions. The answer, for both, is that everything’s okay. It’s just all taking a lot longer than usual, thanks to the backlog created by the Covid shutdown this spring.

But what they needed was reassurance. And that local attorney? She vented for fifteen minutes about her own frustrations. “Thanks,” she said when she was done. “I’m sorry to vent, but I needed to.”

Those clients were grateful, too.

I understood how therapists feel.

I’m no therapist, and I’m not okay, either. I’m stressed, I’m snappish, and I’m scared.

But when I can lift my head out of my stress fog, I’m reminded of a time when my entire life was swept out to sea by an undertow of grief. Feeling so intensely wounded made me suddenly understand that everyone is wounded, in some way or another. And despite what felt like the end of my life as I knew it, I never felt closer to humanity as a whole, never more connected.

This is another one of those times.  No one is fine. No one anywhere in the world. A virus has united us all. And frightening political changes, the distortion of what we thought was our reality, is making it worse. We’re scared, we’re angry, or we’re stuffing those feelings down and hiding behind something else. We’re not fine, and it’s okay.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if we all admitted it, and realized we’re all in this together?

We’d feel a whole lot less alone.


Read more installments of Village Voices by Susan Barnett.

Tags: Susan Barnett Village Voices
Before you click away... grab a free month of HV1. Get unlimited access. Get the news you've been missing. Get connected to your community. Keep local journalism alive at $5/mo., or cancel anytime. And enjoy summer!
- Geddy Sveikauskas, Publisher
Previous Post

Operating the Saugerties waterweed cutter is more complex than originally thought

Next Post

Tough questions about Covid

Susan Barnett

Related Posts

Village Voices are on hold
Village Voices

Village Voices are on hold

November 17, 2020
A liberal education
Village Voices

Keeping it all together

August 24, 2020
Writing about oneself
Village Voices

I need a day off

August 24, 2020
Saugerties initiative combating addiction and suicide adds more events
Village Voices

Time travel

August 24, 2020
Where to buy face masks locally
Village Voices

A story of three states

September 2, 2020
The kids talk politics
Village Voices

Stories on the ballot

August 23, 2020
Next Post
Ulster County health infrastructure readies for coronavirus cases

Tough questions about Covid

Trending News

  • Voting on August 23, here’s what you need to know 2.2k views
  • Developers pitch plan to turn former box factory into a three-story hotel 1.7k views
  • Kingston declares Drought Emergency with watering restrictions, boil water near Stony Run 1.6k views
  • Ulster County reports first confirmed case of Monkeypox 1k views
  • Saugerties High School student dominates Ulster BOCES lookbook 832 views







Latest HV1 Podcast

Weather

Kingston
◉
75°
Cloudy
5:57 am8:06 pm EDT
Feels like: 75°F
Wind: 5mph WSW
Humidity: 84%
Pressure: 29.87"Hg
UV index: 0
TueWedThu
91/64°F
86/66°F
88/63°F
Weather forecast Kingston, New York ▸

Ulster County COVID-19 Active Cases

Subscribe

Independent. Local. Substantive. Subscribe now.

  • Subscribe & Support
  • Sign up for Free Newsletter
  • Print Edition
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial

© 2022 Ulster Publishing

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Contact Us
    • Customer Support
    • Advertise
    • Submit A News Tip
  • Print Edition
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
    • Where’s My Paper
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Log In
  • Free HV1 Trial

© 2022 Ulster Publishing