Human Together

I held it together all day. 

Worried over my business, and thousands of other businesses whose future revenue decline will be somewhere between a little and all of it. 

Worried for my co-workers and clients who are more than colleagues but are truly family.

Worried for the 200,000 young people served by our school district, far too many of whom lack the resources to make up for the lack of instructional time they're missing.

Worried about our high school seniors, who are missing out on what would've been some of the best days of their lives: prom, graduation, and beyond those big milestones 1,001 mundane moments that make up that special transition into the rest of their lives.




Worried for my 76-year-old dad, who is sheltering in place in California, and my sister and my wife, both of whom are in the health care sector.

Worried about my own finances, and those of so many others in this city who live on a way thinner razor's edge than I do.

Worried for my alma mater, which cancelled a diversity conference I was excited to attend, as well as this year's commencement services, which is a devastating blow to graduates and their families.

Worried because all YMCAs in the area are now shuttered, and I literally do not go a day without going to one or more Y's, so I simply don't know what my schedule looks like absent this. 

Worried over how my two older kids are going to handle this unprecedented disruption in their school schedules.

I held it together through Asher's bedtime stories, when he alternated between being a bad boy, being confused about why I was so irritable, and innocently asking me why I couldn't take him to the Y for awhile and couldn't really explain why that was.

And then I kissed him goodnight and sat at my desk, the rest of my family safely in bed and I all alone.

And then I wept. I wept from the weight of it all, and because I am feeling completely out of sorts, and because the combination of contagion and uncertainty is the perfect formula for utter dread.

I consider myself a strong person.  I have faith, and the One in whom I have faith is strong.  I am resilient, optimistic, disciplined. I am working hard, doing my best, and taking care of myself.,

But I wept, because I am also finite, and vulnerable, and scared.  Because I am human. 

I am posting this because I process my feelings by writing and sharing them.  But I am posting this because, at a time when we are all supposed to be practicing social distancing in a physical sense, I sense we are all the more desperate to connect with one another in an emotional sense.

Despite the fact that we are now forced to be physically isolated, let us humans reach out to one another so we can be human together.