By Zsofia Pasztor / Herald Forum
“Good to see you; it’s been a while,” she said the minute I walked over to the table.
It had been a while. Almost two years now. Covid sort of threw a wrench into the plans for most of us.
The autumn sun was just right, so people could sit outside. Good thing too, since the coffee shop was once again not allowing sit-down guests inside. She got up and took a step forward. We hugged. Masks on. A long, beautiful hug. These hugs feel like a thousand I-love-yous these days. Real treasures. I could feel tears about to break, but did not end up crying.
We sat there, in the warmth of the fading sunlight, each sipping a latte and talking about the walls. The walls that were getting thicker and taller over the last months. The pandemic deepened the divide and strengthened the barriers. We sighed a lot. We could feel it: the pain, the hurt, the wounds these past months left us with. The years from deep down that just accumulated until the pandemic made it all too much.
Just breathe. Smile. Sip latte. Smile. Breathe. Sigh. Yes, we are alive, we are alive. We are frontline workers. Essential workers. The indispensable teams, the ones who never got to isolate, never got to sit at home and be bored, the ones who got yelled at, stared at, breathed on, and coughed on. We watched as our friends and relatives got sick before the vaccine. We lost some. We are the ones who walked through the red-hot coals and brought back the food and medicine. We are hurt. Yet, there we were, sitting in the autumn sun.
We haven’t seen each other for a long time. She worked at different programs than I did. But we both knew what the other was feeling. I softly said: self-care. And we both burst out laughing. And we laughed so hard, we were tearing up. Oh geez, yeah. Self-care. Let’s add that to the to-do-list!
The weight of having to remember self-care was pulling both of us down. It had become another chore; one more thing we needed to tackle so we would not be labeled burnouts. I remembered my conversation with my therapist. We concluded that if we did not feel traumatized and about to burn out, we would not be human. No one should be able to walk this path unscathed. In the past self-care was easier though. Getting together with friends, with family, to just unwind on a lazy afternoon somewhere in a backyard was simple. Now, with covid, it is risk-taking. We must plan for it. That makes it feel as a burden instead of fun.
We had to head home. The sun was going down and it was getting cold. Yeah, let’s connect very soon again!
I guess we had accomplished some self-care. We took time to sit and do nothing for a few minutes. We sipped hot drinks and watched the sunset. We did it!
If you know essential workers who have been working through the pandemic, let them know you appreciate them. We need to hear it. We need to know. May we all heal and be healers!
Zsofia Pasztor and her husband emigrated from Hungary to the United States in 1989. She is the founder of Farmer Frog, a nonprofit that works to establish edible gardens at local schools.
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