Friday Friday Friday

Suicide is front and center this week and it's a little raw out there. I'm not going to ask you to check on your friends or any iteration of that because most of us do not have the skills or personal capacity to support someone who is anywhere near the brink of suicide. It also implies that we can have some sort of influence, power, or implied responsibility to keep people alive that much of the time we simply do not have no matter how much we want to think we have it. It also says we should see signs that people who struggle are so adept at hiding because they don't want us to see them or because they know we can't handle them and friends, we are mostly just not going to see signs as life goes on around us. It leaves us with pain and guilt that are hard to move on from. What I am going to ask you to consider doing:

- Approach the world with understanding

- Be continually conscious that we do not know what is going on inside anyone's head, heart, or spirit, no matter how close we are to them

- Have grace and allow space for people and for yourself

- Drop the illusion of perfection from your life: from the background of your photos, from your presence on the Internet, from your performance at your job, from your abilities as parent, from your roles as spouse/friend/daughter/son/etc. This helps signal to other people that you are okay with them dropping the illusion of perfection/all good nothing to see here from their lives

- Inwardly and outwardly value redemption and recovery from mistakes, addictions, errors, accidents, etc. We are imperfect people living in an imperfect world. People are going to fuck up. We cannot live in a world that tells them they can't come back from that. The pressure of that is too great a burden for anyone to bear. This does not mean drop your boundaries, but you see what I'm saying I hope. Are we all alive? Good. We'll figure the rest out later

- Stop calling for punishments that do not fit the crime both systemically and interpersonally

- Free yourself and other people from unrealistic expectations. Life is not always happy. We cannot always be positive. Things aren't always going to go according to plan or be as fun as we think. We can try our best and not succeed. We do stupid shit on purpose and inadvertently. We don't always win. We can't fix things all the time. Etc etc

- Learn to sit beside each other in pain, trauma, grief, rage, healing, ugliness, whatever. It is not comfortable and happy but sometimes we just need to be there for each other like that. Just present, not fixing.

- Know people are more than their struggles and weaknesses just as you know they are more than their achievements or successes 

- Recognize and press for systemic change to the affordability and accessibility of healthcare on the whole and mental health in particular. Affordability and accessibility for ALL people no matter where they live in this country. 

- Talk about suicide without shame or stigma. It has touched so many families, mine included.

- Talk about mental health without shame or stigma for the same reasons

- Don't be an asshole who makes fun of people needing safe spaces and instead be a fucking safe space

- Do not make it harder for people to live in this world. The world is hard enough

- Know what resources DO exist for people and help them access them when you can

Also.

Beach scenes this week.

Dogs and coats and dogs in coats rage. Coworker dogs. I have been at the shore since Monday and MFD was supposed to arrive with Mae and Billy today and we were going to Congress Hall tonight for festive fun but a series of unfortunate events prevented that from happening.

Fellow Tuesday haters, does this opener to a short story by Alice Hoffman ring your bell or what? I laughed out loud.

The fusion breakthrough this week. What a time to be alive, said in a good way for once. You never know over the past few years.

Nails! A muted holiday version? Two of my favorites: China Glaze Planted & Enchanted and OPI This Shade is Ornamental

There is nothing to even say. I howled with laughter.

This has been...not the best week. Lots of balls in the air personally and professionally and lots of shit to deal with. I'm happy it's Friday. My weekend does not look like it did when I started the week, but it will be a welcome respite just the same. I hope yours is too!