Week 60
View from the houseboats
The fog has rolled in, there are reports of small fires, and this week has felt a bit like September. I felt like I had a pretty good amount of patience and resilience all week until I hit a wall Thursday afternoon. Too little sleep and too many things my brain was trying to do. Thank goodness the weekend is nearly here.
Mother’s Day is Sunday. For those of you grieving, I hope you are able to protect yourselves or make space for feelings. Among other things, I’m looking forward to a break - a few hours alone in the house while Sam takes Theo to Cal Academy.
(Re)learnings and observations
Ideas for dealing with grief/anxiety/work integration: These are ideas for people waiting helplessly for updates from far away or for people who are grieving. There are a lot of healthy ways to cope, including toggling between “pretending to be normal” and feeling feelings. Everyone experiences each loss differently. Ignore anyone who tells you you’re doing it wrong – you don’t need guilt on top of everything else. Keep auto response messages up, especially for people outside your institution. Delegate decisions (especially when people ask you to do things a few months away) to a “no” committee of trusted mentors/peers/supervisors. Pre-negotiate (and re-negotiate) extended deadlines. Simplify your to-do list – I cleared off nearly everything but one paper I could analyze and write myself. Create a “menu” of both work and self-care activities, ranked from high to low cognitive/emotional load (or ask someone to do this for you), to reduce decision fatigue. Or use the Eisenhower matrix to help organize work tasks. Ask other people to write email that you can’t (especially moving deadlines or explaining what’s happening). Accept offers for help, even though it feels really weird.
Make specific offers rather than ask questions: My mom didn’t ask what she could do to help while Sam was away. She offered to make dinner one night and came over another morning so I could work out (I definitely would have talked myself out of it if she hadn’t just said “I’m coming over). Making specific offers, vs asking questions, is immensely helpful when you are juggling too many things. As a sidenote, this is true of little kids too. I’m practicing not asking Theo questions but instead offering two options to choose from.
Anti-racism work: Taking the first of two 3h UCSF DEI Champion trainings today (Friday).
Gratitude & appreciation
Bike ride with a work friend
MTB ride with Sam
Sam got his second shot
Sam got a night away in a hotel for decompression/vacation time
My essay about Larry and Mom’s experience with hospice was published in Health Affairs (let me know if you want a copy, given the firewall) – the podcast where I read it out loud comes out next week
I got a bunch of nice compliments this week to add to my “good news” file / email folder
Senior people in our group being vulnerable and sharing how the pandemic has been hard for them
Things to read or listen to
The Double Shift podcast this week is an intersectional look at the history of uncompensated childcare and domestic labor in the United States.
OpEd about discrimination against people from the AAPI community
Great productivity advice from Dr. Sakar (write one sentence every day on your top-priority writing project)
Upaya program about Belonging on Saturday (with houseboat neighbor Frank Ostaseski)
An article on microaggressions
I hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy.
Krista