Sometimes the Yogurt Wins

As you can probably judge from my vastly decreased posting frequency, life has been a lot for the past few months. Riding the waves of the pandemic has left me exhausted, with very little bandwidth for things that aren’t absolutely essential in maintaining my physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual health. 

Most of my spiritual space has gone toward my local Pagan group, where we have been trying to keep enthusiasm going for virtual events, even though all of us are So Over Zoom (™). I’ll also be stepping into a new leadership role, and I am some combination of honored, excited, and terrified. I know it will be good, but sometimes the impostor syndrome kicks in and interrogates me: “Are you really qualified to do this? Why you? Wouldn’t someone else be better? What makes you think you are ready for this?” For the most part, I’ve been good at telling impostor syndrome to sit down and shut the fuck up, but the doubts still occasionally creep in. 

As with so many areas of life, the pandemic has made the little things so much more important, to the point where they have a disproportionate and sometimes ridiculous level of impact on my life. 

A prime example of this is a weekend in mid-December, where I questioned all of the life choices that led me to this point. It was a lazy Sunday so far – I got to sleep in, and didn’t have anything to do until much later in the day, when I was getting on Zoom with some friends. I decided to forgo my usual smoothie breakfast, and make myself a bowl of yogurt and granola with some fancy granola I had gotten in my last grocery delivery. I was looking forward to enjoying a quiet afternoon, with maybe some blogging or listening to an audiobook.

Then, all chaos broke loose.

On the way to the couch, I dropped my bowl of yogurt and granola, and somehow in its descent to the floor (coupled with me trying to catch it and utterly failing), the contents of the bowl went everywhere. There was yogurt on me, yogurt on my cat, yogurt on the carpet, yogurt on the couch, yogurt halfway across the room, and even yogurt on a framed art print of Aphrodite that was five feet up the wall. After hurriedly cleaning the yogurt off my cat and shepherding him to another room so he wouldn’t eat anything he wasn’t supposed to, I broke down on the floor next to the largest pile of yogurt, and cried. I was sad that my relaxing breakfast was in shambles. I was overwhelmed at the sheer physical improbability of how much of my apartment was now covered in yogurt. I was upset that I had JUST vacuumed yesterday and now this happened. I was in despair because I had no idea how to get yogurt out of the carpet. I was frustrated that good food (and therefore money) was wasted.

And I was angry. So fucking angry. I was angry at myself and my clumsiness. I was angry at the pandemic for giving me such a short fuse to begin with. I was angry because the pandemic was supposed to be done by now if everyone was just responsible and did what science supported in the first place. And I was angry at the world for not giving me a fucking break!

So I cried. I yelled at the ceiling. I begged my gods in tears for things to get easier. To just have one day that wasn’t stressful. To be able to eat my breakfast in peace. To be more capable of handling things so that I didn’t fall to pieces over a ruined breakfast and messy carpet.

Eventually, the tears stopped and I scraped myself off the floor. I got the yogurt off the wall and out of the carpet. I vacuumed (again). I picked up the pieces of granola fifteen feet away. I let the very impatient cat out of the bedroom and watched him carefully to see if he found bits of mess I overlooked. He did. I cleaned some more. I sighed and I got on with my day. 

This is just a note to say that if you are having a hard time, you’re not alone. Things aren’t back to normal no matter how much some people may act like they are. It’s okay to not be okay. You’re doing the best you can. Show yourself understanding and compassion. And know that you are loved.

You can and will get through this. Sometimes the yogurt wins, but you’ll dust the granola off, clean up the mess, and get on with life.