Hi Everyone!
How things have drastically changed since my first newsletter two weeks ago. It just so happens that I’m a homebody introvert with roughly one local friend, so it hasn’t been too difficult of an adjustment.
My husband, Sam (also an introvert), is adjusting to things even easier than I am. Sam is the cleanest person I know. He showers three times a day. He washes his hands constantly. If a piece of food drops on our clean kitchen countertop, he insists on throwing it away. The Coronavirus has not changed a single thing about his day-to-day habits. In fact, he told me, “I’ve been preparing for this my whole life.”
We miss our respective gyms and are more anxious than usual (does anyone else wake up each morning convinced they’ve contracted the virus??), but otherwise we are doing just fine.
I have never been more grateful for my online community. I appreciate all of you so much and love that you are only an email or Twitter-direct-message away. Please know that I am here for all of you as well, and always look forward to connecting with you.
Be a better gift-giver
My aunt got me and Sam a shitty wedding gift.
Yea yea yea, that’s mean and I should be grateful and I’m a horrible person.
But I am grateful. It was very nice of her to think of us. I sent a thank you note. Now I’m just stating the truth. It was a bad gift. And people, in general, need to work on their gift-giving skills, so I wrote about how they can do that.
Parents and the Coronavirus
I call my Dad and ask how he’s doing. He says, impatiently with a sigh, “I’m fine, I’m great, thanks for asking.”
Dad knows that I’m concerned about his and Mom’s well-being, but he proceeds to tell me, “I’m not going to stop living my life… I’m not old, anyway.”
Apparently, I’m not the only one struggling to convince my parents that they need to take this virus seriously and that they should be concerned with not only their health, but containing the spread. We’ve entered a weird role reversal where kids are trying to protect parents. Unfortunately, most of our parents don’t want our protection.
Frustrated and worried adult children have taken to Twitter for advice:
It’s not until I tell my Dad, “You know I’m calling because I love you and I’m worried about you,” that he softens, ever so slightly.
Even saying these words to him are difficult. I’m not used to expressing love for anyone in my family so when I finally do, I have to choke back tears because I typically suppress those feelings.
But right now it feels very important to let my guard down so that he doesn’t feel threatened by my concerns. If he feels like I’m attacking him, he won’t finally agree to at least wear gloves while he’s working (who knows if he actually does and who knows if it will actually make a difference).
With family, you have to pick your battles. This is one of those moments where it’s important to make my opinion known.
Isolation and Weight Gain
This is a very strange and surreal time. I feel so fortunate that Sam and I work from home and are able to do our part in social distancing without it affecting our lives the way it has for so many others.
I hope to use this time to write and read and learn a lot. I definitely need to figure out a way to work out at home and stop eating ice cream every night because, “Hey, I’m quarantined and pregnant and I deserve it,” is what I keep telling myself.
It probably doesn’t help that I decided it was absolutely necessary to bake a batch of my famous chocolate chip cookies. One batch yields 60 cookies. And there’s two of us.
In his most recent podcast with Seth Godin, Brian Koppelman hit the nail on the head when he alluded to “The Freshman 15” and said we’re all going to gain “The Covid-19.”
We signed a prenup
Sam and I are very practical people. Prenuptial agreements have a negative connotation, but the fact is, if you don’t make your own laws for your own circumstances, state law becomes your prenup.
It can get a little uncomfortable, for sure. We each had our own lawyer and our own meetings and were forced to think about worst-case scenarios that you never want to even imagine are possible.
Divorce attorney Randall Wilhite recently discussed his experience with prenups on the podcast, Noah Kagan Presents:
“I have seen some marriages not happen because of the prenup coming up. Maybe the non-moneyed spouse asks for too much or the moneyed spouse doesn’t offer enough and feelings get hurt.”
Sam made a bunch of money before he met me. I made a bunch of debt before I met him. We each had moments of feeling greedy and selfish during this process.
But Sam and I trust and respect each other so much, and are able to be completely transparent and vulnerable in these conversations. The bottom line, for both of us, is that if we were to step outside of this situation, and look at, say, our friends entering into a marriage with each other, we would absolutely want them to sign a prenup, or at least make sure that whatever the state says is in line with what they both want.
Do I think any of this will ever happen? Of course not. I could not imagine going through a divorce with Sam. But if it were to happen, I would not want to have court battles and fees and arguments about how to split everything up. With a prenup, the nightmare of divorce will at least be clean.
It’s important to note that we’ve decided to re-visit our prenup every five years. The longer we are together, the more things will change and the more we will adjust. It’s an ongoing conversation.
Parenting advice
Brene Brown’s long-awaited podcast, Unlocking Us, is finally here! (I’ve only been waiting since January, but I couldn’t possibly wait any longer.)
I laughed and smiled through the entire first episode and highly recommend listening to it in its entirety.
She reminds parents that perspective is a function of experience. With this in mind, here’s her advice:
“If you have kids who are saying, ‘I’ll never see my friends again,’ or ‘I can’t believe we’re missing spring break,’ that lack of perspective is not always about selfishness. And we don’t make them tougher or more empathetic towards others by diminishing their feelings.
“Disappointment is something that a lot of us are feeling right now. It’s OK to be safe, have enough food, have some resources, and still feel disappointed. Denying your disappointment doesn’t make you more empathetic to people who have it a lot worse than you do - it makes us less empathetic. So all the feels, all okay. Name them and talk about them.”
If there’s ever a time to sit around and talk about our feelings, this is it!
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Wishing you all good health and connectivity.
Stay safe, computer people!
Until next time,
Charlie