For Everything Else, There's $25

Yesterday we observed Tisha B'Av, the "saddest day" of the Jewish year. It is the culmination of 3 weeks of sadness, a remembrance of too many times in Jewish history that our people suffered, of the physical and spiritual void that we long to fill where our Holy Temple once stood, may it come to be rebuilt speedily in our days. I'm not a huge fan of sadness, planned or otherwise. Who is? And honestly, I found myself asking why we "need another 3 weeks to be sad this year?" Have we not experienced enough of this on a daily basis since the middle of March? And by yesterday, notably the "saddest day," as I fasted from a very horizontal position in my bed longing to eat anything not nailed to the wall, I was just content to be "done with it." To move on. To get back to normal life. Or at least laundry. 

Indeed, this pandemic has stretched on for 141 days now. But who's counting? I have been able to see so many silver linings to our days and hours and minutes. That is probably why I can write this from the comfort of my own home instead of a bed in a psychiatric ward. My family is healthy, thank G-d. We have what we need. We are able to work together and have flexibility to manage my husband working from home and everyone being here at the same time. My kids have each other. We have each other. We get to play. A lot. Maybe even enough. (Can you ever play enough?) And yet every day is laden with decisions we have to make. Decisions that should feel small but feel enormous. Who should go to the grocery store? Should we take the kids to a park for a walk if we all wear masks in 106 degree temperatures? Should we bring them in to see the pediatrician for their wellness checks or do it via telepractice? Should I wipe down the outside of the soap bottle I just bought or let it stay in the hot car for 24 hours? Should I wash my hands again, for the 6th time in 15 minutes because I did go to the grocery store and bring the bottle of soap in from the car? Yes, the answer to that is always yes. What should we do about school in the Fall? 

And that right there is my privilege speaking at full volume. That any of these things even are decisions to be made is an enormous luxury. That the extremely difficult decision we came to about our children and school in the Fall is one that hadn't been made for me or one that could even have more than one mystery door to open and walk through is a luxury we have that many many others do not. But I think I have decision fatigue (is that a thing?). I hate making decisions. I wanted to plant a garden this Spring and I couldn't decide what type of tomatoes to grow when I made a curbside pickup order at our local nursery. (There's my privilege speaking again.) So in the email I just said "four types of tomato plants, you pick.

I wonder why I didn't think to take this approach with the whole school in the Fall decision... "Can stay at home and distance learn, homeschool, school in person...you pick!" But at least the probable outcome with the tomato plants was four types of tomatoes (less probable when I'm the gardener but luck shone down on these little guys). The probable outcome of my children's educational experience, physical, social and mental health next year (and ours as well) is totally unknown. I don't love surprises. I'm learning to love them in small increments. But when I say that, I mean, I like "surprise, I got you a new book!" Or "Surprise! We're having waffles for dinner!"  Not "Surprise, that store you went to yesterday to pick up a tub of margarine is the last place outside of your house you will go to for the next 3 months" or "Surprise! You picked Mystery Door #2 and now your kid is ruined forever and will blame you in therapy for the next 30 years."

When I was growing up, my parents could fix just about anything. From a broken VCR to a skinned knee, from a teen-aged broken heart to a failed math test, my parents could fix it. There was a DIY book on the shelf for the VCR and when that didn't pan out, we got to have at it with screw drivers and a hammer. There were several types of band aids and topical ointments for the skinned knee and a kiss made everything better. There were real life examples of surviving the pain of unrequited teenaged love and a trip to the ice cream parlor to manage the interim. There was empathy and a tutor who smelled like Irish Spring soap and buttered popcorn to help with my math test. And then, sometimes, something would happen and my dad would just give us $25. That time I discovered I was eating my favorite animal in our Chinese takeout? $25. That time we got into a fight with a friend and came home crying? $25. That time he accidentally said something that made us cry? $25. It's something we've poked loving fun at over the years and once in a great while, I will still follow up a conversation about something difficult with "does this mean I get $25?"

So this morning, S woke up crying. He's been a bit more emotional the past week since having a Zoom playdate with a friend (because that is a thing now). He sat on his Tatty's lap and cried because he misses his teachers from last year. He misses his friends. He, like the rest of us, misses life as he used to know it. And maybe he's crying for what was. Maybe he's crying for what is. Maybe he's crying for what is still ahead--more of this Unknown and Waiting, arguably two of the most difficult states to live in for any amount of time when you are 6 (or 36), even for minutes, let alone months. And my first response when my husband told me was "What can I do? I don't have a way to fix it." So I texted my sister and asked her if she thought $25 might help. Like, at what age do we start offering $25 to fix things? 

And that's when I also finally understood what that $25 was all about. That was what was offered for the things that couldn't be fixed. When there was no way to bandage or explain away the pain. For when there were no books or experts to heal the hurt. For when no previous experience of one's own or otherwise could point you in the direction of which Mystery Door to open next, there was $25. It might not fix the problem at hand, but it was something. It said, "I can't make this better, but I want to." It said, "I can't take this away but I wish I could." It said "I'm not perfect, the world is not perfect, and you don't have to be either."

Two crisp bills, a twenty and a five, said that sometimes you just have to sit with that sadness. Maybe for a day or maybe 3 weeks. Maybe every year around the same time. You have to give it a space and a place. That place can be a lap and that space needs to have walls because you cannot stay in it forever. But it can be warm and it can be cozy and can be followed up with $25 (or in this case, a trip to the park for a nature walk). Because sadness is sometimes not a bad thing. Sadness is just another way of longing. Longing for what was, longing for what will become. And just on the other side of longing is motion. Motion forward (or backward), actions of change, actions of learning, growth, release. Longing is what propels us ahead. Maybe at full speed and maybe just one foot in front of the other, but it is what tells us "You can sit in this sadness, you can miss what was.  You can be apprehensive about what is and what will become." And longing is what keeps us going. 

Maybe those three weeks of not cutting our hair or buying new clothes or listening to music are not a "punishment." Maybe those 9 days before Tisha b'Av that we don't eat meat or drink wine or do our laundry are not a "harsh decree." Maybe that is G-d's way of saying we can wear our comfiest sweatpants with an extra loose waistband and eat mac n'cheese for every meal and ice cream straight from the tub for dessert. Maybe it's His way of saying we can listen to that sad song on repeat 389 times and cry into our pillows instead of putting on a happy face and heading to the mall with friends. We can do this within this space and within this place because sadness does need its own time and location. But we don't remain there. We don't feel comfortable there. We long to get out of that.

In some ways, contentment and complacency are worse enemies than grief. In some ways it feels OK to be NOT OK with this. My kids will have many a time they cry on our laps. I hope they don't get too big for that too soon. There will be some times we can fix it and sometimes we cannot. Maybe Tisha b'Av is the day we sit on G-d's lap and cry. Some years He might have a bandaid, a DIY manual, a useful anecdote from history, a tutor or an ice cream cone. This year He gave us the proverbial $25 because it will get better, it has to, but not right now. Not just yet. And maybe those 3 weeks are about longing more than sadness. To me, sadness feels stagnant. Like giving in and giving up. Longing feels like trudging through it because for rainy days, there are rubber boots and umbrellas. For minor boo boos there are topical ointments and Paw Patrol bandaids. For high school breakups there are RomComs and wavy BBQ potato chips. And for everything else...there's $25.

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