​We are having a crisis in this country. I’m amazed that no one is actually talking about it. Oh sure you hear bits and pieces of it pop up in conversations. Usually as complaints about something personally related to them. But no one is talking about the bigger issue. The thing that has become so toxic, I’m constantly flabbergasted that we haven’t had an actually protest about it yet.

Do you know which issue I mean? No? Here’s a hint:

It’s a contamination of epic proportions and it’s affecting every decision we make and how we show up in the world to each other.

Still not getting it? 

I’m not surprised considering it’s been insidiously worming it’s way into our physical systems and social structures for some time now. To the point where most people don’t even know it’s a problem anymore. Practically everyone over the age of 18 is literally infected. And our youth are conditioned to think this is “normal health”.

It’s a dis-ease of adulthood. Or rather the lack of adulthood.

Put simply, we grownups are no longer allowed to be grownups and it’s poisoning us from the inside out.

​I was an essential worker. At least, for several weeks, at the beginning of the pandemic. Just before the mask mandate came down, after losing everything I had built up for my own business, I found a job at the local CVS up the street. Stores like CVS remained open, supposedly complying with strict levels of cleanliness (which translated to a dirty store and occasionally spraying fumes of lysol at the register). And my job was deemed “necessary” - by me because I had just lost everything. By society because no matter what, people need toilet paper.

If we could get it, that is. The world was having a run on toilet paper even though COVID was not a stomach virus.

It was not an ideal position. Within a day of being hired, multiple “supervisors” were texting my personal number offering to “walk me” to work since they all knew where I lived up the street. Apparently, it was “okay” for them to take down the personal details of a “hot girl” (their words not mine) since they were in positions of authority. It felt sketch to say the least. But I was desperate for work, and tried to shrug it off. I also refused their offers of walking me anywhere. Several tried to be insistent, so I generally ran out the door as fast as I could after my shift.

​My birthday - August 18th - is one month from today. I love birthdays. I think there is something remarkable about the day we are each born. At a certain moment on that very day, we as unique individuals, separated from the genetic material that housed us while we grew, and entered into a relationship with the world we now live in.

That’s pretty heady stuff when you think about it. And naturally, in our infantile states, we had absolutely no knowledge of this grand debut into the world. Imagine it as a party, in which you are the star guest, and everyone forgot to tell you. 

The good news, is that this lack of awareness left us as children, free to explore and create in our own little way, without the pressure of having to report on our findings of this great experiment called life.  

However, at some point in this connection, we ourselves became aware not just of the planet around us, but of our conscious self and the interactions we had with it. To put it simply, we awakened to the thought - whether we understood it or not at the time - of “I exist”.

It was almost too decadent to think of. Large, round, a blushing red fading to a golden yellow at the top. It smelled like fall and fresh air and sunshine. The sound when my knife cut into it - all crunch and sharp like the crack of a whip in the wind. And the taste as I raised that first succulent bite to my lips. Heavenly.

I understand why the apple was the Bible’s choice for Eve to allegedly woo Adam into eating from the Tree of Knowledge. For this apple, appropriately named “Envy” lived up to it’s name as I savored it’s juicy flesh.

That, however, was a memory - brilliantly vivid but of a time not in the present moment. No assuredly not, as the fruit in front of me would have hardly tempted anyone to take a bite. 

​“It will cost how much??” 

I was on the phone with a removal service scheduling a pickup for my couch. I planned to donate it to a charity, but sans truck, I was having to pay someone to take it away. I had already tried to arrange pickups with EIGHT local charities, all of which informed me they stopped that service during the pandemic of 2020.

The man hemmed and hawed. “It depends on where you are. It might cost $149, maybe $199, but if we have to help you lift it out the door the price goes up considerably…” 

The sound of an old fashioned cash register ca-chinged in my head. Suddenly I realized he was asking me the location of my flat. When I gave him the address, he guffawed some more. “That will add about another $50 or so to the price. It’s a difficult location.”

“I’m five minutes from your main office where the truck is housed,” I interjected. But as the man began a long winded, utterly nonsensical saga about the logistics of getting to me (read: you’re a woman and can’t possibly understand directions to go three streets over and make a right hand turn into the garage) - I realized getting rid of this couch was a pain in the ass - one I didn’t intend to repeat in my next location.