Hello friends,

We’ve been doing this for more than a year now. Day after day, story after story, an unrelenting assault. I’ve coped by tracking the news so I can narrate it, both here and at Unbreaking.

In an interview last week, I was asked what has surprised me most about this work. My answer is that I find strange comfort in staying this close to the news cycle. I am grateful to have a workflow to manage the flood and a solid routine for making sense of it all. That’s all true, but what I’ve failed to build into that routine is recovery time.

I hit a wall earlier this week.

Fortunately(?) this has happened to me before. In my first marathon, I bonked right before mile 20. It was so miserable and so memorable that I’ve never let it happen to me again - at least not while running. But lately, I’ve been forgetting my own damn metaphor. I broke every rule in that list this week: I agonized about different choices I could have made, I tried to keep pace with others who are faster than me, and I hated - absolutely despised - letting other people see me flailing. I hate admitting it to you now.

The whole point of my work is that we can’t fix what we can’t name. So while I feel substantially better after sleeping for almost 19 hours, it’s really not okay: I must plan for and take recurring breaks. I’m not sure yet what I’ll do on those weeks, but I’m going to start by looking back. Revisiting Year 1, Week 8 is a little uncanny:

• On budget issues: “For science broadly, my best understanding is that this is less about immediate budget cuts, and more about control. The question is who decides how money is spent, and the details.. are all disturbing.”
• On dangerous weather systems: “The forecasts for these storms are a genuine marvel and another terrible example of how the science that keeps us safe is being destroyed, along with next generation warning systems, and our emergency response and recovery systems. I dearly hope you and yours are safe.”
• And what to do: “Protect yourself from measles. The disease is doing exactly what we expect and fear, which is bad now and for years to come. If you were born between 1957 and 1989, like me, our childhood vaccinations were less effective than the modern version... I’m scheduled for my MMR booster on Monday. Join me!”

Looking back like this is both a little startling and immensely clarifying. So much has changed. So much is exactly the same.

It feels like we need to move into a different mode now that we can see the patterns for what they are. I’ll be working on what that means - but just not right now.
My best, always,
Liz

PS - I just learned about The Researcher Wellbeing Project and that’s the first thing I’ll start in on next week.