I Did The Unimaginable This Week. 

I did the unimaginable this week. I went back to calling friends and opening with a greeting that in 2020 has become fraught with peril. ”How are you?” 

Back in the early days of the pandemic, when we were all struggling with securing Clorox wipes, toilet paper, and a bag big enough to scream our dread into; I was warned off inquiring how someone was by a friend who went nutballs when I asked her.

“Hey, how are you?” I asked her on a call in April. I think it was April. It may have been May since many months this year were seven hundred days long and seem like another century ago to me now so I’ll have to ask you to cut me some slack on the timeline.

“I can’t believe you’re asking me that!” She clapped back. 

“Mmmmmmkay… what should I have said?” I wasn’t being cheeky, I really wanted to know. 

“Unless you want people to unleash the Kraken of Doom on you, you really shouldn’t ask that. Besides, it’s just a line, nobody, in the history of humanity has ever wanted a real, honest answer to that question!” She paused long to chew out her cat for being an asshole. I waited. “Where were we? Oh yeah, Covid has given us all permission to ditch being polite and you know, vomit our insecurities all over the place.”

“Got it,” I answered, considering myself lucky for her tutelage on such a delicate topic. “So… what do you say?” 

“I dunno, when I ask, which I don’t because my heart can’t take it, I say something like, Still holding up okay? Which is code for, I’m barely hanging on so let’s cry together.”

Duly. Noted.

Another acquaintance of mine started a call with, “What am I interrupting?” Which in the early days felt mildly confrontational. Like she assumed I was being so productive with my new surplus of unscheduled time (along with everyone on Instagram) that I could be so busy as to be interrupted. 

“Just another puzzle,” or, “Not much, just my second batch of chocolate chip cookies, because I ate the first one myself,” never seemed like pursuits that were interruptible. Also, and this still applies, don’t ask moms that question. They. Will. Hurt. You.

Anyway, I admit, I was so afraid of making a mistake and saying something wrong that I avoided calling at all. I resorted to texting which is dry and impersonal as hell in a year when all we need is real connection.

Gahhhhhhhhh……..

In retrospect, here’s a real nugget of wisdom I gained in this year of valuable lessons learned on Earth 2.0. 

The question How are you? Is no longer perfunctory and the answer “Fine” is neither expected nor accepted. 

We used to be able to say it and get on to the next thing but nobody is fine after this year. At least not in the old sense of the word. Fine had become an unconscious, gross oversimplification and if 2020 has taught us anything it’s that we are waaaaay too complicated for such an inadequate word. 

We are nine months into this pandemic/financial whatthefuckery y’all, and I for one have gestated out of being afraid of feelings—whether they’re pouring out of the other end of the phone or I’m having them face-to-face on a Zoom call. I’m tired of avoiding the obvious. “We can do the hard things,” the wise words of Glennon Doyle keep reminding me.   

I am one of the fortunate. I have survived pretty good so far. 

So, I will ask you how you are because I can. And you can bite my head off and tell me how completely miserable you feel— and I will still listen. And then we’ll laugh at the unending absurdities of life and cry at the injustices. And before I hang up I’ll remind you — just like I do myself at least a thousand times a day— that there will be happier times ahead.  

At the beginning of World War II Emily Post, the woman American’s looked to for how to behave, advised her predominately female readers NOT to write frivolous letters to their boyfriends who were away fighting the war. “You shouldn’t bother them with the trivial,” she admonished. But as the war dragged on she changed her directive, telling the young women that hearing their name called at ‘mail call’ and reading the loving words from home was the morale booster these young men needed. 

Which got me to thinking, maybe the kindest gesture is that we reached out at all. So, as scary as it may be, call anyway. 

Carry on,

xox JB