In all forms of art, editing can be a painful but necessary process. Transformative, even. But I don’t need transformation, I just need a nap.
Lately, I’ve felt overwhelmed. I mean, yes, by all the things that so many of us are overwhelmed by, namely a pandemic and its ghastly effects on modern society and the revolutionary exposition of American morality and racial consciousness—but actually, those aren’t the things that have sent me over the edge. What has is an ordinary ping on my phone: an online invitation to yet another thing that interests me and that I want to do and that I say to myself, I should do that. (‘Should’ is an evil-ish word.) These pings have been stacking up daily, and as much as I want to do them all I’m ignoring them more and more and each time I do I feel another ping inside my head. Disparagement. Self-doubt. And a string of utterly stupid questions beginning with why can’t I…ending with I don’t know why but I just can’t.
With the recent jarring realization and subsequent reluctant acceptance of the fact that working mothers can’t have it all – in a pre-COVID world and even less so in pandemic 2020 – I’ve decided that my life requires editing. I’ve been near a breaking point with the equation so well-known to working parents, where Time x Energy = Production. Sometimes I have enough time to do something, but not enough energy, and vice versa. Like for example, tonight it was enough time to go get and wrap the baby shower gifts stashed in my basement for this weekend’s social distance gathering, but I literally didn’t have the energy and instead lay sprawled on the couch in my food-splattered T-shirt watching The Politician. For my cardiology nerds out there, this is similar to Cardiac Output where HR x Stroke Volume = CO. Well, if Time is Heart Rate and Energy is Stroke Volume, my cardiac output is like 1L/min and I need a dobutamine drip STAT. Maybe an LVAD. Medical translation: I’m fucking tired and I get down on myself unnecessarily.
I grew up being encouraged by coaches at all-girl soccer camps and swim lessons and baton twirling competitions that YES I CAN do everything boys can. I can have a job. I can have a family. I can have professional aspirations. I can have a kid and be healthy. I can breastfeed and work full-time. I can be physically fit and eat right and enjoy cocktails with friends. I can be part of social clubs, lead volunteer groups, and go after promotions. I can earn and save money. I can make plans. I can look put-together. But, (with emphasis, perhaps shouting) I JUST CAN’T do it all AT THE SAME TIME. One of my new mom friends, a nurse-practitioner currently on furlough, and I were chatting about this truth at a park 6-feet-apart through face masks while our kids crawled around the grass. She said to me, “It’s such a fucked-up message from society. Hey! Here’s a breast-pump! Look! Now you can work AND mother simultaneously!” In case you missed it, and is the keyword here. The TL;DR version of this entire blog post can be summarized in this next sentence. Life can’t be and anymore, it has to be or. I encourage the reader to visit the links above for excellent op-eds that further and more eloquently elaborate on the topic of not having it all and the overriding message that my brain is most frantically occupied with—Marie, you can’t do it all. I’ve found myself singing aloud to the Monty Python tune of Always Look on the Bright Side of Life substituting the words: I can’t do it all, and that’s okay! Duh duh, duh duh duh duh duh duh… It’s not fair, and it’s not what they told us, but it is my 2020 reality. And it is, in fact, okay. I am really, really okay with having an “or” life right now instead of feeling like I must soldier through an “and” life.
So, to the act of editing. I morosely bowed out of my feminist book club which I attended sparsely despite real dreams of consistent participation. I left every Facebook group that I wasn’t active with. I unfollowed social media accounts that made me feel the least bit self-critical—sorry Blake Lively, I just can’t keep up with your level of awesome—and I unsubscribed from newsletters that made me feel unsuccessful for not following through, i.e. I never attended that webinar, or donated to that cause. I went through my phone and found every ping that prompted an internal dialogue along the lines of Oh, I should do that or I haven’t gotten to that yet. It dawned on me that all these alerts were barriers to commending myself for doing the things I am doing, such as successfully feeding my one-year-old breakfast and making a point to tell my also-exhausted spouse how much I love him. I mean, I’ve always known these were priorities, they’re always at the top of my list, I just reached the point where I allowed myself to feel bad for not doing #5-1,498 and omitted patting myself on the back for consistently doing #1-4. I realized, as I clicked away on my laptop and phone departing commitment after commitment, that what it comes down to is that mediocrity is what makes me feel like a failure. Perhaps I need additional therapy to unpack this very familiar plague of high-achieving Millennials (insert shoulder-shrug emoji, and then wine glass emoji). However, editing my life to the essentials and trying to accept the reality of not doing or having it all is what I am (and countless other working parents out there are) doing to survive, COVID-19 or no COVID-19. This brings me to the sad announcement that I am retiring my healthcare podcast Head-to-Toe.
I heard a funny quip on NPR’s Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me news quiz show that the pandemic lockdown won’t produce a baby boom but that everyone will start their own podcast. And here I am ending mine after four years, 42 episodes, 65 healthcare professionals interviewed, and thousands of downloads. As much as I love podcasting (and I love it despite my reality of not earning a dime from doing it aside from minute donations from patrons), I don’t want to continue at a rate and quality that are substandard to my creative desires for the show. I don’t want to become proficient in half-assing things I care about. (Again, see links above for reasons why working parents, and especially working moms, have come to this coping mechanism.) So, I’ve decided to end it with four special COVID-19 episodes and a recorded goodbye. I’m full of mixed feelings: sadness that I don’t have more in my gas tank for the podcast, gratefulness for all the people I’ve encountered along the way, wonderment at the amount I’ve learned on technical and creative levels, and finally a profound sense of honor to have told the stories, highlight the topics, and most importantly give voice to the often-unasked and ignored healthcare professionals in today’s art and media. (One thing I can thank you for, coronavirus, is a slight bump in this trend. (Thanks Banksy.)
For your reference and enjoyment, I will keep all the episodes here on my website and on Podbean. You can of course continue to listen to them and share them. You can of course still email me your healthcare stories, because I love to hear/read them as they all inspire me. I’ll even keep the podcast feedback line open that no one ever calls (503-512-0185) in case anyone wants to drop me a line about the show or leave a voicemail with your thoughts on the show’s conclusion. And if you feel so inclined, you can support me and my future artistic efforts by buying my book .
Head-to-Toe has been a special part of my life and career. I can’t say with absolute certainty that it won’t be resurrected in some form in the future, and I can’t say for sure that this will be the only podcast I’ll ever host or produce. For now, though, it is time to put down the mic. I hope to have more Energy and Time for not only the essentials of my life, but also for writing more, reading beyond my social media feeds, and planning furtively for the day that my son does not require 24/7 attention and the world isn’t on pandemic lockdown.
To listeners and supporters, old and new alike, I thank you deeply. To my past show guests, thank you again and again as each time I listen I learn something new and feel more impressed that you ever talked to me. To everyone I’ve encountered along the way via networking, other podcasts, conferences, emails, LinkedIn, Instagram, Skype calls, phone calls, and all the other places—I’m so glad to have met you and I hope to continue our connections. To my family for believing in me and my crazy storytelling passion, I love you and thank you.
To everyone still reading: Stay healthy. Stay six-feet apart. Send virtual hugs. Be kind. Love one another. Remember that it is infinitely easier to breathe through a mask than it is to breathe via a ventilator. Remember you have only one body and it doesn’t come with a warranty. Laugh because life is short. Be able to believe in and question science simultaneously. Listen to people you disagree with and speak your truths with respect. Call your mother once a week. Fill out your advance directives, then live long and prosper. And for God’s sake, register to vote. And then vote.
And now I’ll end it like I do most episodes—until next time, take care.
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This is the blog post version. Listen to the audio edition here.