I have a Pinterest board full of little motivational sayings.
Sometimes, I copy, paste, crop, and shrink them, then print them off and cut them apart and put them into highly-decorated recycled Altoids tins to give to other women I think just might need a tinfull of little motivational sayings. Like this one:
It's a good motivational saying. Especially for people like me who are basically moms with side jobs. I think on it often.
But I haven't been feeling it lately.
Because I'm non-essential.
I'm not medical, or media. I don't work at Wal-mart or a gun shop. I'm not a teacher, a policeperson, firefighter or electrical linewoman. (I am, however, inclusive.)
But today I was called in to work at the food pantry, a place I've volunteered at for years but have been a little frightened to work at for the past month. The last few times I worked, we hustled to bag hundreds of bags of groceries for hundreds of families, and members of local service organizations delivered them.
After the last time I worked, I woke up every night for two weeks with a panic attack, afraid that I had come in contact with the Rona. Was it on the bags, on the food, carried by the beautiful people standing beside me bagging food, singing along to my carefully curated Spotify Food Pantry playlist?
But as is the case with many things during this pandemic - social services, opinions on mask-wearing, hospital visits, snack selections - it changed. Customers are again coming to the pantry, but just not like they used to.
Everything was different.
Everything was safe.
Customers came to the door with no close interaction, no complex paperwork. Just give me your name and we'll give you some food.
It was a good day. We did good work.
I feel a tiny bit more essential.
Peace.
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