The below email was distributed on June 14, 2020 as part of PureWow’s Be Well email series.
Even Just a Little Bit Better
Three weeks ago I would’ve been more than happy to discuss listening to music as a form of therapy. Or to talk about how to use movies set in gorgeous destinations to satisfy quarantine wanderlust. I wish I could simply wax poetic about running and the escape it has provided me with. But none of that feels right in light of the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. It feels unimportant given all that is happening with the Black Lives Matter movement as well as the ongoing pandemic.
Sometimes I find myself energized while reading up on and learning about the parts of Black history my formal education skipped over. Other times I find myself bursting into tears because the sight of my cat doing something silly makes me think of my recently departed grandma. I’m all at once frantic and lethargic. And with my energy stretched so thin between a multitude of important issues, I frequently just have to ride those emotions out, rather than compartmentalizing them to deal with later.
We are all in one way or another grieving right now—grieving for lives lost to the coronavirus, grieving for lives lost to police brutality, grieving for a sense of normalcy despite knowing that nothing will ever really be the same as it was before the world upended. We have a long road ahead of us, one with no true end point or conclusion. It’s like a hiking trail, evolving from a thorny, overgrown struggle into a smooth, well-worn path. It still needs constant maintenance, even as it gets easier to walk along.
There are resources we absolutely can and should utilize to help maintain a balance between being functional and falling apart. But even if you feel like you don’t know where to start or what to do with yourself, I’ve found it incredibly important and helpful to remember none of us are alone in this. Your feelings, whatever they may be, are valid. We can’t fix, solve or cure Covid-19, racism or any of the world’s other ailments overnight. The best thing we can do is to be kind to ourselves and others, and continue to move onward and upward, striving to leave things even just a little bit better than how we found them.
xx,
Abby Hepworth
associate editor
Say hi on IG! @abby_hep