This isn’t about the Super Bowl
“Push it down.”
She said she can’t believe it’s been a year since things were normal, and I corrected her. We’re still a month away.
“Nope — push it down,” she said again. We laughed.
“It’s fine, everything is fine.” Just like we used to say at our Bluestone meetings every week, in the early days. Consoling each other through building our businesses and laughing our way through uncertainty. Telling ourselves it’s fine.
Now, two years later, there’s another beast we’re laughing our way through (over FaceTime instead of almond milk lattes). We laugh and hold our breaths because it’s easier than thinking about how long it’s been.
Because if we start to remember, we start to spiral. How much longer will we have to live like this? When will this be over?
It happened again last night.
When I was popping open a beer or chopping up some veggies, I thought about the last time I went to a Super Bowl party. Back when I was living outside of Boston with some of my favorite people, a bunch of us scattered around the living room, a lot of laughter and good food.
Push it down.
Or maybe it was when I put my oven mitt on. The muscle memory of placing a baking sheet in the heat, but this time not for a crowd. Maybe it was remembering all the apps my mom used to place throughout the kitchen, and everyone would pick a team to root for so we could cheer and jeer and yell and laugh together.
Push it down.
Maybe it’s the laughter I heard from the building across the street. A window cracked just enough to know there are too many people inside. Push it down.
Maybe it’s the years of youth groups and friend groups and families and bars,
And wondering when we’ll have that again.
If we’ll have that again.
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This is my first post for #Write52. I’m scared to commit to sharing one piece of original content a week, but we’ll see where this goes! Come say hi on Twitter or Instagram.
