covid-19 and not feeling “good enough”

I really don’t want to write anything right now. The truth is, five seconds ago I forced myself to sit up in bed, open up a word document, and start writing to you. I spent the ten minutes before trying not to cry too loudly for fear of one of my roommates’ hearing. So, that’s where we’re at right now. 

This is the last place I want to write to you from. My room is messy, I’ve been meaning to clean it for days now and between being under the weather and feeling emotionally under the weather, I just haven’t done it. My mind feels messy. Cluttered, and emotional, and unsure of where I’m actually at right now. I mean, I know I’m in my bedroom in Kirkland, WA…but how do I actually feel? Am I okay? Am I not? And if I’m not, then how do I get ok?

I’m always fighting the urge to write exclusively from my most “put together” place. The Katie who is crushing life and acting humble about it. The Katie who reads her Bible, works out, waters all her plants, keeps in contact with all her friends, crushes her job, and somehow sleeps 8 hours a night doing it. I hope you catch the denoted sarcasm here. I’m pretty much never that Katie. I read my Bible less these days than I used to. At one point I would water all my plants, but ask my roommates now, and they will tell you the slow and painful deaths most of my houseplants have endured at the hand of my neglect. I never feel like I’ve caught up with every person I love, or even most of them. And if I’ve slept eight hours a night, which I generally do because I’m a zombie otherwise, then I’ve probably neglected at least half of the things on that list. Those things I listed among many others are the things I do that make me feel “good enough.” 

You see, when I wake up in the morning, before I’ve accomplished anything, one of two things happen. I set 3000 alarms because I’m a terrible morning person, and I’ve somehow developed an innate ability to both silence and disable alarms in my sleep. On workdays, I have to get up at a certain time in order to be timely to my daily activities (although, I’m admittedly still sometimes late, and definitely working on it). 2000 snoozed alarms later I drag myself out of bed, pop a Zyrtec in my mouth because allergies, and then immediately hurl myself into the shower. In the shower I think about things I need to do that day, the toothpaste I need to remember to go buy, a line of an article I want to write, and how my singing voice sounds worse in the shower than I remember. And then before I get out, I always think about how I wish it didn’t take me 2000 alarms to get myself out of bed. How I wish I was a morning person. How I wish I had woken up earlier so I’d have time to make a leisurely breakfast and start my day slowly. It’s really a microsecond of a thought, but if I had to name that tiny microsecond of a thought that I have every workday as I shower it would be called, “self-disappointment.” The little voice inside saying, “why are you like this?” “Can’t you just be better?” 

I know this is a bleak beginning to what will hopefully end as encouraging prose. But, it’s honest, albeit a bit dramatic. On the days I don’t have anywhere to be in the morning, I try to let myself sleep in. You know those people that aren’t good sleeper inner’s? The ones whose bodies automatically wake them up at 6 am. I am definitely not one of them, I admire them, but I am not a part of the club. I’m a really good “sleeper inner.” I would sleep in until 2 pm if I weren’t afraid of the social stigma. So, I let myself sleep in, and when I wake up, at 9 or 10 or 11 or noon, I’m already frustrated with myself. “Gosh Katie, why did you sleep in so late? You’ve slept away the whole day now.” I don’t even like admitting to other people how much I like sleeping in, because I think it makes me seem lazy, and I hate that.

At this point you’re probably wondering why I am chronicling for you my odd self-talk related to my inconsistent sleeping habits. Like what does this have to do with me? You see, it’s 1:06 am right now and I’m still up writing. By the time I finish it most likely be into the very early hours of the morning. I will probably sleep in. And when I wake, it is more than likely that I will berate myself for sleeping in so late, even though I was up writing to you. You see I’m trying to portray a principle here. A principle I’ve unknowingly lived by for far too long. The principle is this. “I will be good enough when…” 

I will be good enough when I’m in my ideal body. 

I will be good enough when my room is always clean. 

I will be good enough when I never sleep past 9 am. 

I will be good enough when all of my relationships are in a healthy place. 

I will be good enough when I’ve written a book. 

I will be good enough when I get married. 

I will be good enough when I never fall asleep with makeup on. 

I will be good enough when I don’t have this chin pimple anymore. (this one’s current lol).

I will be good enough when I’m in a 100 percent healthy state of mind. 

Or really, I will be good enough when I’m absolutely perfect. 

I may not consciously think these things, but I live as if I had. 

Prior to this past August I had never been fired or let go from any job, and I’ve had lot of odd jobs in my life, Abercrombie, a vegan juice bar, Sunglass Hut, you name it. I really prided myself on having never lost a job. In my head, losing a job meant you had failed, and if I failed, then did that make me a failure? I was terrified of being fired or let go. I can remember working at the Sherman Oaks Sunglass Hut as a twenty-year-old college student and I started to sense my boss wasn’t my biggest fan. I showed up a few minutes late a number of times and she just wasn’t having it. My usual charm and extended “sorrryyyy” definitely wasn’t working on her. Being late has been a problem my entire life. My family is always late, except my Dad, he’s always early. Teachers, bosses, advisors etc. had always been quite lenient in regard to my tardiness. I guess I performed well enough when I was present to make them overlook the lack of integrity I was showing by being late. After noticing my tall, very pretty Sunglass Hut boss was less than enthused about my tardiness, I started to sense that disciplinary action might be on its way. I panicked. What if she fires me? How would I tell my parents? What would I tell the next job I apply for? So, in what I thought was a stroke of genius, I quickly started applying for other jobs, landed one, and then immediately submitted my letter of resignation. I couldn’t be fired if I quit myself, right? Crisis averted. Or so I thought. 

I started a new job and life went on. I didn’t get fired so I allowed myself to not feel like a failure. But deep down, I knew the truth, I had come up short. 

Just a note here-I’m not in any way trying to excuse tardiness. It’s a problem I’ve spent the last year and a half very consciously working on. It’s gotten loads better, but it still isn’t perfect. A very trusted advisor in my life sat me down a few years ago to, “talk about my tardiness.” As soon as I opened my mouth I burst into tears. I couldn’t contain the shame I felt. How could I be so good at what I did and still not be able to just show up on time? For a long time, I never wanted to talk about it. I would throw the, “I’m from LA, everyone is late,” card around. I remember someone talking about talented people and how they can, “get away with being late because they’re exceptional.” I realized then that I didn’t want to write that story with my life. I didn’t want the obituary to read, “She was so talented she got away with whatever she wanted.” I didn’t want to just get away with it. I wanted to be talented and on time. 

Fast forward six years to this past August. I was working at a restaurant here in town. I had gotten shift coverage for a Church event I was going to, when two hours before, my manager informed me she could no longer allow my co-worker to cover me, and that I needed to come in. I knew that the right thing to do was to forego the event and just show up for the shift. I asked two of my friends, looking for them to give me confidence that not showing up wasn’t a terrible idea. I hadn’t been in trouble at work before, I had been a few minutes late a handful of times, but my boss liked me, it would be fine, I thought. 

I didn’t show up. I told my manager I was sorry I couldn’t come in. And a week later I was sitting at a long table with my Bosses, four hours before boarding a plane to spend time with my then boyfriend’s family, be the maid of honor in my best friend’s wedding, and spend some time with all the rest of my best friends in New York. 

The conversation didn’t go well. He talked. I cried. My character was attacked. My representation of Christianity was called into question and to top it all off after learning I was twenty-six, he called me “old” haha. This is not meant to be salacious in any way. I’m not even trying to be critical here. I could look back and see this conversation as some rogue old dude saying some really hurtful things. But looking back, I think he did me such a favor. I think he genuinely meant to help me. It was tough, but it was love. 

I walked away having kept my job but nursing a very bruised ego. Nine days later I was in Central Park with my then boyfriend and our two best friends. We were sitting at my favorite French Patisserie looking out at the park as the sunset lightly kissed the acres of grass. I thought it might be one of the most perfect moments of my life. My phone buzzed, I unlocked it, read the notification and then proceeded to check my email real quick. I noticed an email from my Boss. I read the first line; tears welled up in my eyes faster than I could get a hold of my emotions. My employment was being “terminated.” “What’s wrong?” they said.  “I just got an email saying I’m being fired,” I said. The rest of that trip was tender for me. Intermittent tears fell as I worked through conflicting feelings of failure and freedom. I didn’t really like that job anyway, and I wasn’t okay with how I was spoken to, but I failed, and I was fired, and that was too embarrassing to even admit. What would I tell other jobs? What would I tell everyone else? What was I gonna do?

Sitting across from one of my best friends the day I left New York, they looked at me with tears in their eyes and said, “Katie, it seems like all the walls are falling all around you, and I think you should just let them fall, because what’s left will be the real you, who you actually are.” The second those words came out of their mouth I was enraged. “The walls are falling? Like I’m falling apart? My life is falling apart?” “I don’t want to fall apart,” I thought to myself, “I’m sick of falling apart.”  

Eight months later those words make a whole lot of damn sense. I flew back to Seattle, went to sleep, and woke up the next morning and left for work at my other job. At the time I nannied part-time for a wonderful family. At the end of my shift both parents came downstairs with a somber look on their faces. They told me that they hadn’t wanted to ruin my vacation by telling me prematurely, but they needed more full-time care than I was able to provide, and they didn’t want to take away from any of the other things I got to do at the church they knew I loved so much. So, they were putting her in day care. They told me they loved me like their own and I knew they meant it. I told them I understood, gathered my things, climbed into my car, and wept. 

I felt like a failure. I lost two jobs in three days. How could this be happening? Prior to this I had never been fired, not even let go. What was going on? I thought I was trying so hard; how could I have come up so short?

No one told me I was a failure, no one even in insinuated it, but I felt it. 

Since then I’ve had three other jobs. For a while I worked full time at a clothing store, then I worked part time at a clothing store and part time at a church, and then I worked full time at a church. I quit my job at the clothing store because I was working full time at a church and then following unfortunate circumstances I was let go from my job at the church. That was eleven days ago. I have not one bad thing to say about the clothing store or the church. The clothing store was fun and I loved everyone I worked with. And the church, will always be my home, whether I ever work there or not. But this is really not about where I was anyway. The point is that the girl who was terrified of being fired or let go; was fired from one job and let go from three jobs, two of which were dream jobs, in the past seven months. That’s a whole lot of loss. 

I was terrified of losing jobs because I decided that employment was somehow an indicator of worthiness. Having and keeping a “good job” meant that I was, “good enough.” Covid-19 is really weird. They’re predicting that 47 million Americans will lose their jobs due to circumstances surrounding this virus. That would make 32% of Americans Unemployed. That’s kind of crazy when you think about it. Social Media is so weird right now. I did an interview where a woman asked me what the hardest part of this whole thing has been for me, and I said that the hardest part was, “figuring out how to relate to other people.” And if I had recorded it today, I would have added, “figuring out how to relate to myself.” Instagram is full of people frustrated with their work from home status, moms frantically learning how to homeschool, millennials Tik Toking, people finding rest and solace in the fresh air and space, people concerned for their health or the health of those they love, people determined to emerge from this with three new businesses and two new hobbies, people binge watching Netflix, a lot of memes, a lot of at-home workouts, and a lot of talk about how in all of this God is bigger. And none of those things are wrong. No experience of this thing is wrong. I don’t even think it’s wrong to feel discouraged. I think about small towns in third world countries and how much more damaging the effects of this virus might be there. These are unprecedented times, and we’re all just navigating it the best we can. I want to be the faith girl, the girl that always projects a sense that good is on the way, and I do believe that. Humanity will not be defeated by this. But this is hard, being let go is hard, sickness is hard, unknown is hard, homeschooling is hard, working from home is hard, at-home yoga is hard, there are things about life that just seem hard right now, and that’s okay. I’m reading this book that talks about the grief process. They say there are either 5 or 7 stages of grief, depending on who you consult. Each stage is uniquely defined. The thing I found most interesting is that the grief cycle is not a suggestion, it’s a requirement. You can’t pick and choose which parts of grief you want to experience. If you don’t experience every single part you miss out on the fullness of your healing. Look, I’m no psychologist or even a therapist, so take from that what you will, but I guess what I’m taking from that is, that it doesn’t have to be noble to always be “perfect.” Some shit is just really hard, and if you don’t let yourself feel it now, you’ll end up paying for it later. Choosing to repress hard feelings makes it harder to fully experience happy ones. It’s funny, even as I write this, I’m fighting the urge to tell you that this is by far the most emotional and upset I have felt in this entire Covid-19 thing. So many of the days have been filled with a renewed love for running, and cooking, and baking, and gratefulness for my roommates. But tonight, is hard. And that’s okay. I’m going let myself cry if I need to, and feel it when I should, and then I’ll look myself in the mirror and remember that I’m far too emotionally unstable to determine my own worth, and I’ll tell myself that I’m good enough. In sweats, a chin pimple, a messy room, and no job, I’m still good enough. 

Look, I know that my worth and your worth are not dictated by what you and I do. Our worth is intrinsic. Whether you’re like me and you believe that God is the one who has made and declared us worthy, or you just believe in the good of the universe and understand that every human being is worthwhile, the point is, it should be commonplace to know that our worth is fixed, unmoved by our actions or attitudes. But though our worth is fixed, our feelings are often not, and sometimes I need to remind myself, and hopefully remind you of what is actually true. 

It feels like all the walls are falling down around us right now, and that can be really scary. It can feel like the walls were protecting us, and now we’re vulnerable, but those walls don’t serve us anymore. And after they’ve fallen, what’s left will be who we really are, and that’s a beautiful thing. 

So, wherever you are in the world and however you’re feeling, good, bad, or somewhere in between. I hope you know that your Covid performance doesn’t determine your worth. You were good enough before this. You are good enough right now. And you will be good enough in that future that seems so unknown. So, hang on, it’s gonna be ok, you’re still really loved, and the world is still so full of so much more good than you can even imagine.