Don't Care Less
Bonjour, mon ami! I want to tell you one of the many reasons I was created. Like many, I have undergone many changes in the last two years. In the last 12 months, there have been a lot of people in and out of my life, technology is constantly changing, and everything about my life has changed in just a matter of days and hours.
By the grace of God my framily has been very lucky, but have definitely experienced near misses and failures, sudden changes and shifting. I feel like I'm constantly playing Tetris with my time because time is the only thing I can control.
Because I don't have much of a social outlet these days (#MomLife , #PandemicLife), I have become unusually close with the people at work. They have become my de-funked, default family during all this trauma because we interact the most often just to keep the bills paid. We all don't want to work at all, but we choose to work because we do have bills to pay, people to take care of, and in a way we care about what we do. Work also has been a distraction for me personally to avoid watching or reading negative news stories that are straight up fearmongering.
Part of the shuffle of people in and out of my life are new supervisors and bosses and "mentors" - yay for me! Not! When one of my new leaders recognized how emotional I was getting over the fact that a project was not going well because all the people had dissipated (the bottom had fallen out, everyone was getting sick from COVID, impacted by COVID, you name it), he proceeded to tell me to "care less."
My jaw dropped. I thought to myself, really dude!? I'm coming to work as my authentic self (I cannot hide my emotions) and people have been getting sick and dying (they are not coming back), I've worked with these people for many years, and you roll up new and tell me to care less! #OkayBoomer
It was a flippant comment by him, but it felt like a dagger through the heart; like how rude and how cold!? I'm sure he was trying to tell me to compartmentalize my feelings better, but it came out as "care less!" and it rang in my ears for days.
Well bitch! I cannot care less. I have been traumatized with news since the day I could read and pay attention (thanks, well informed parents!) You are what you consume and I am a big ball of stress and anxiety because I am also well informed. I drive myself crazy reading the news; it's psychological self-harming. I have to read to know what's up, but I can't read too much or my spirit will be down.
I think it's unnatural to care less. I think it's unnatural to not feel. It's unnatural to not think the way I think without the influence of others. I'm an independent thinker and I admire other independent thinkers. We are the ones that challenge the world to evolve and be better (#Amen!). You are the army of angels who spread joy and love!
My fellow sprites - do not care less. Keep your spirits up. March out on the world as Joy Ambassadors, Love Sprites! Hold your head up high. Joy is contagious.
Notice how I didn't say happy is contagious. We cannot make each other happy, but we can bring each other joy, which is a passing moment meant to be experienced in pure presence. We can hold onto these little moments of joy in our memories, of when we last smiled, to carry us through tough times.
Keep dancing my little sprites. Care. Be love. I love you for being you.
Yours truly,