everyone will forget you in short order, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing

I have a pretty strong sense of shame. When I mess up and do something dumb or regrettable, it’s with me till the grave. It’s not pleasant but that’s the way I’m wired, and I don’t think that’s all bad. I’ve talked on here before about how I think a good sense of shame is useful for learning from your mistakes — you mess up, you feel bad and don’t like it and don’t want to feel like that again, so you don’t make that mistake again. Hey, that’s just great.

But I’ve been thinking about work lately and the countless co-workers that have come and gone since I’ve had my job, and how no one talks or thinks about those former co-workers now. New staff cycle through who never even met the old ones so the memory of the old ones evaporates completely quite quickly.

So even if I do something I feel dumb about at work, I just have to think about how

• no one cares about my mistakes as much as I do,
• one day I’ll be gone and once I am, no one will think about me or my mistakes at all because memories are short and new staff won’t have known me to start with, and
• if anyone did remember me or any mistakes I made, they have either moved on already or will move on soon too,

so it really doesn’t matter and I shouldn’t beat myself up over it. It’s neat to think about this stuff and recognize how insignificant most of us are beyond the present and immediate future. We only matter to the people who deal with us, while they are dealing with us — once you aren’t in their lives anymore, they forget you. It’s kind of crazy. On one hand it’s sad but it’s also somehow comforting in a way. I’m not sure why I also find that comforting, and I’m too tired to dig into that now. It’s late and I need to get to bed. The main thing I wanted to get down was that everyone will forget about you and all the things you did, both good and bad, pronto.

Liz’s big karaoke comeback — my thoughts on restorative exercises and the lack of them throughout the pandemic

Last night, Liz hosted a joint birthday party for Jenn, Julia and I. It was a fantastic time. It was great to not have any pandemic restrictions in place, to see so many friends in one place, to be able to sing karaoke again, to see people cut loose again. There were too many lovely, heart-warming moments for me to list them but one moment in particular stood out: Liz was dying to fire up the karaoke and kicked it off with Cher’s If I Could Turn Back Time. I’ve heard Liz sing that song many times, and I’ve probably heard Liz sing literally hundreds of karaoke songs overall, so in the past this wouldn’t have been a standout moment. But last night, when she started belted it out in her inimitable voice — deep and full yet simultaneously adorably squeaky, and always full of passion and dramatics — I felt a real, “whoah, it’s been a long time, and I’ve missed this” moment. There were actually a lot of similar moments throughout the party but that was the most potent one for me.

It got me thinking about shit we do that is restorative. I don’t even like using that word because to me, it smacks of annoying kumbaya “let’s sit in a circle and talk about our feelings” bullshit, but I also do believe it is a legit thing. Several years ago, I took a workplace course about how to deal with stress and traumatic events, and my big takeaway from that course was there are things we do to relax, and things we do to restore ourselves mentally and emotionally. Both of those things are necessary for us to keep our heads above water, to not go crazy from the stress of dealing with heavy shit.

But throughout the pandemic, I — just like everyone else — have dealt with a lot of added stress, and while I’ve still been able to do things that help me relax, I have not been able to do a lot of the things that I find restorative, due to pandemic restrictions. Now, I’ve obviously been aware that I’ve been feeling even more grim than usual over the last year and I knew that was probably due to pandemic stuff but I wasn’t aware of this specific lack, and now that I see it, it seems really fucking obvious why I and everyone else in the world has been struggling lately — what could the powers that be expect from two years of restrictions, of not allowing people to do things that are necessary to help keep them sane? I took that course just a year or two before the pandemic and at that time everyone was like “mental health is so important and this is what we need to do to keep it up,” but as soon as covid hit, that was all forgotten. How fucking stupid. It’s comical in an absolutely unfunny way how short memories are.

At this point I don’t believe pandemic restrictions will ever go away. I bet that in two months, they will be back in full force (although I think there will be a lot more push back at that time) — this shit has gone back and forth too many times already for me to believe otherwise — so I’m going to squeeze as much restorative shit into my life while I can. I need all the good vibes I can get right now so that I don’t completely unravel during the next lockdowns. Time for maximum fun, full throttle. I need a lot more Liz karaoke in my life, stat.

Jeez, I thought this was going to be a warm, happy afterglow-type of post, but it sure went in the other direction. I guess that really speaks to how fucked up I am. Just another illustration of how many more Sambuca snorkel nights I need to get back to normal. To be clear, I do feel really good this morning. Last night was fantastic, I loved it. So many great friends and wonderful moments.