Dreams I’ll Send You | Essay 10

A birthday month practice

I found this on my phone and I honestly can't remember whether I made it on one of the game sites or if I saved it. Either way, it felt apt for the times.

For the month of February 2025, I’ve decided to publish a micro essay once a day. I described the why and what here.

In all honesty, because I’ve asked you to keep me accountable, this mini essay is a day late. I had to meet a deadline for another essay, a long form one introducing a new project in the humanitarian aid sector. Or rather, I had to meet a new deadline after I had blown past the first one. My writer’s block had turned into a boulder and I was having trouble finishing the piece because the situation in the aid/dev sector kept changing every day last week, and I kept scrapping my drafts. Every day, a new development; every day, a new essay. I took yesterday to focus only on work and writing about the sector, and my month-long birthday practice had to wait.

I felt a little twinge that I made it through nine days out of 28, and then had to put it down. Maybe no one noticed. But I did. For a minute, having my practice disturbed felt like sandpaper on skin. Then I remembered the world is on fire, or drowning, or imploding, whichever metaphor you hold dearest. How could it not disturb me?: There’s no disappearing from the external world right now.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t disengage when we need to. Consistency and commitment are essential right now, in how we meet the moment, in how we fight, how we love, and how we care for each other. But those words don’t mean rigidity, especially now. Some people have given everything they have to fight for a more just world, for years, and decades, only to arrive here, at our present moment. The ability to take time to think about anything else is a luxury we should gift ourselves. The ability to ask someone else to pick up the burden is one, too. We should give ourselves and each other grace, and sometimes a wide berth, and sometimes just time and silence.

I remember seeing a video of a GenX woman saying something like, the best thing about approaching 50 as a woman is having no fucks left to give on the things that aren’t important, but turning into a lioness with her cubs nurturing and protecting the things you truly love. The moral and emotional clarity of that hits in the right place. Fuck everything that doesn’t matter. Nurture and protect the things you love. And then pick up again, and fight. Because nothing ever changed for the better without a (love-fueled) fight.