How to be alone

Many of us dread being alone .
We find isolation uncomfortable or downright scary .
If you want to know just how eager we are to avoid it , consider a scientific study that offered people a choice between giving themselves electric shocks or being alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes .
Believe it or not , many chose the electric shocks .
But here ’ s the good news : Being alone is a skill .
And , just like any other skill , you can get better at it with practice .
I want to suggest that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get through this pandemic winter .
Instead of dreading being alone , you can lean into it .
Whether you ’ re skipping holidays with your family in an effort to contain the current coronavirus surge , or quarantined in your room because you have Covid-19 , you ’ ve probably felt at least a momentary surge of panic at the idea of being physically cut off from your loved ones for days or weeks or months .
That ’ s a reasonable feeling : Social distancing is brutal .
Full stop .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ years to take comfort in one another ’ s presence , so when we ’ re isolated , it hurts us on a physiological level .
At the same time , we can probably recognize that some of our fear about being alone is not unique to the current pandemic .
It ’ s a fear that has lurked in us for years , as we ’ ve forgotten — or perhaps never really learned — how to sit with ourselves , including with our uncomfortable thoughts and emotions .
“ I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alone with ourselves because getting to know ourselves is a very fearsome process , ” Jack Fong , a sociologist who researches solitude at California State Polytechnic University , Pomona , told me .
To keep this fear at bay , lots of us have a podcast or TV show constantly playing in the background , or a rotation of friends we call one after another .
Many factors have conspired to make us bad at solitude .
They ’ re mostly not our fault .
As Jenny Odell lays out in her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ live in a culture where sociability and constant connectivity are rewarded , and where choosing to be by yourself marks you out as a loser , crazy , possibly immoral .
And when we do find ourselves alone , we ’ re increasingly at the mercy of an attention economy that bombards us with ever-present , ever-pleasant distractions .
With external stimulation always just a click away , it ’ s never been so easy to avoid our inner worlds .
Why would you sit with a feeling like boredom or sadness if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ texting a friend , or bingeing a Netflix show , or launching a Zoom call ?
And indeed , these technologies are the salves everyone seems to be proposing for pandemic-induced loneliness .
Don ’ t get me wrong : They can be genuinely useful .
Like I said , loneliness hurts us physically as well as mentally .
I live alone , so to stay sane , I ’ ve engaged in my fair share of Zoom dance parties .
Nevertheless , these fixes feel unsatisfying because they ’ re all about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just , well , being alone .
And that avoidance stands to make us even more scared of our solitude .
Decades of psychology research have taught us that trying to escape a distressing emotion is a bad long-term strategy ; it teaches our brain that we can ’ t handle that emotion , and our distress actually grows more intense .
So how can we use this opportunity not to escape solitude but to lean into it ?
We can learn from people who figured out how to do this long before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can learn from survivors of solitary confinement For starters , we need to distinguish between voluntary solitude and enforced solitude .
Plenty of people who ’ ve experimented with the former — hermits and monks , philosophers and artists — have worthwhile lessons to teach us about being alone .
But it ’ s people in the latter category whose experience is most instructive for us now .
Consider what Keith LaMar , who ’ s been in solitary confinement in a supermax prison for 27 years , recently told Mother Jones .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ think solitary confinement is a form of torture that should be abolished , and it makes our self-enforced , tech-enabled isolation look like a walk in the park .
There is simply no comparing the two .
Yet LaMar — as well as Jason Rezaian , a journalist who survived solitary confinement in an Iranian prison — have discussed their experiences in the context of the wide-scale quarantining going on now , in an effort to help us through this period .
So let ’ s consider LaMar ’ s insights : Being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thrown upon yourself : You ’ re running around , just like people do in your regular life , and now all of a sudden you ’ re confronted with yourself , and find that in a lot of cases you haven ’ t really put anything into yourself to occupy yourself .
Everything is outward directed .
That ’ s what happened to me 27 years ago , and what happens to a lot of guys who are initially thrown into this situation — it ’ s like being thrown into the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to swim .
You have to learn how to deal with yourself .
I ’ ve been lucky in a lot of ways .
My cell has a bookshelf with three shelves , and there ’ s a table to sit and write .
I have a lot of music , books to read .
Not to distract myself from myself , but to take me deeper into myself .
I paint , I work out , I do yoga , I meditate .
I ’ ve watched quite a few people fall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I went in another direction .
So 27 years later I ’ m still sound in mind and body and spirit .
I attribute that to just reading and cultivating myself .
That ’ s the thing , when you ’ re thrown upon yourself , you realize you are more equipped than you realized .
A lot of the system keeps us from realizing our own power .
It ’ s a good opportunity for people to tap into that .
… Hopefully young people being forced to stay home outside of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a glimpse of themselves and start pulling on that thread .
There ’ s a lot of wisdom in this perspective .
In fact , it echoes many of the key observations scholars have made over the years about solitude .
First , there ’ s the idea that to succeed at solitude , you have to accept that you ’ re being “ thrown upon yourself ” — to confront your reality rather than opting for distraction .
Then you have to “ put something into yourself ” — to make solitude @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into who you are and develops you further .
Matthew Bowker , a Medaille College researcher who studies solitude , says something very similar in The Handbook of Solitude .
He notes that being adept at being alone “ implies the capacity to generate meaningful and valuable experiences in the internal world , for if one wishes to be when alone and not merely to wither or starve , one must be able to generate and possess some of the vital stuff of being.
” In other words , you ’ ve got @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in subtraction , and start seeing it as an experiment in addition .
What you ’ re adding is your self — a true self , because at last it ’ s you who ’ s building it , not anyone else .
You ’ re no longer looking to other people for their attention or approval .
The psychologist D.W. Winnicott often drew a distinction between the “ authentic self ” and the “ false self.
” Without realizing it , he said , we look to other people to scaffold our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s they who perform the construction of our identity .
When we ’ re alone — when their judgments and preferences are no longer there to shape our self-concept — it tends to break down .
That can be terrifying .
But it can also be a gift .
Because when the false self falls away , it leaves space for you to build a more authentic self .
What we can learn from people who pretend to live on Mars Another key ingredient to successful solitude , psychologists have found , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Steve Cole , a researcher at the University of California Los Angeles , studies interventions designed to help people cope with loneliness .
He ’ s found that the ones that work tend to focus not on decreasing loneliness but on increasing people ’ s sense of purpose .
Recalling one pilot program that paired isolated older people with elementary school kids whom they ’ re asked to tutor and look out for , Cole told Vox , “ Secretly , this is an intervention for the older people.
” Philosophers have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clear sense of purpose .
“ Nietzsche said if you find purpose in your suffering , you can tolerate all the pain that comes with it , ” Fong , the sociologist , told me .
“ It ’ s when people don ’ t see a purpose in their suffering that they freak out.
” In 2003 , Kate Greene moved into a geodesic dome on top of a Hawaiian volcano , where she spent four months pretending to be an astronaut on Mars .
NASA funded the experiment because it needs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ isolation , so that real missions won ’ t go kaput just because someone gets lonely .
In a recent essay , Greene confesses that she had a hard time living in the dome .
Separated from her loved ones and troubled by confusing information from mission support , it was hard to remember her sense of purpose .
But when she did , it made all the difference , she writes : Billy Barr , who ’ s been living alone in an abandoned mining shack high up in the Rocky Mountains @ @ @ @ @ @ @ similar advice .
He says we should all keep track of something .
In his case , it ’ s the environment .
How high is the snow today ?
What animals appeared this month ?
For decades , he ’ s been keeping track of the answers to these questions , and his records have actually had a serious influence on climate change science .
Now , he suggests that people in isolation get through the coronavirus pandemic by participating in a citizen science project such as CoCoRaHS , which tracks rainfall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doing that , ” he told WAMU .
“ You get a little rain gauge , put it outside and you ’ re part of a network where there ’ s thousands of other people doing the same thing as you , the same time of the day as you ’ re doing it.
” He and Greene both also emphasize the importance of routines — the little daily rituals that anchor us in time and give shape to a day .
The rewards — and risks — of solitude Isolation has many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it can also harbor danger .
First , the virtues .
A long line of nature writers — from William Wordsworth and Henry David Thoreau to Annie Dillard and Mary Oliver — have described how solitude allows them to reconnect with nature , and through nature , a deep bliss .
Many artists insist that isolation is necessary for creative work .
“ I paint with my back to the world , ” said the painter Agnes Martin , because “ the best things in life happen to you when you ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if they ’ re ambivalent about solitude as a long-term path , acknowledge that it ’ s useful for fostering spiritual insight .
The Hebrew Bible says Moses spent 40 days alone on Mount Sinai before receiving the Torah .
In the Roman Empire , Symeon the Stylite lived on top of a 60-foot pillar — for 37 years !
Hinduism and Buddhism both have rich traditions of solitary forest dwellers .
And Christianity has countless recluses ; my favorite is Julian of Norwich , who at age 30 asked to be permanently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have visions of God and write about them .
The Trappist monk Thomas Merton and the psychologist Carl Jung both pointed out that dissociating from society allows us to perceive and call out its illusions .
“ I am a solitary , ” Jung wrote , “ because I know things and must hint at things which other people do not know , and usually do not even want to know.
” Nietzsche , in Thus Spoke Zarathustra , suggested that solitude can heal us from an overstimulating culture ( “ Flee , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I see you dazed by the noise of men ” ) and reconnect us to ourselves ( “ go into isolation ... seek the way to yourself ” ) .
But isolation also comes with its fair share of danger .
The problem is that , as Nietzche ’ s Zarathustra puts it , “ whatever one brings into solitude grows in it , even the inner beast.
” That can mean anxiety , or melancholy , or some other kind of distress .
For this reason , the philosopher said “ solitude @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Nietzche was prescient enough to know that solitude is a dangerous project , ” Fong told me .
“ If you are not ready for it , the cave you enter can be a very scary place .
For those who have unresolved issues that may not have been attended to by a mental health expert , this may not be a good place to go.
” That ’ s why psychologists typically recommend gradual exposure .
If being alone is scary to you , ideally you want to seek it out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — once you ’ ve proven to your brain that it can in fact tolerate the distress — slowly increase the dose .
If you ’ re in the midst of a full-blown panic attack , that ’ s not a good time to practice honing a new skill ; you may need to first soothe the distress a bit .
Engaging the senses to bring yourself back into your body is one commonly recommended way to do that ( it ’ s no coincidence that everyone on social media is now baking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Unfortunately , a pandemic doesn ’ t allow us to take the stepladder of solitude as gradually as we might like .
It ’ s not ideal , but even under these circumstances , we can build up to the skill of being alone .
How to practice “ distress tolerance skills ” for being alone : A practical guide The best step-by-step guide I ’ ve read for this purpose comes from the Centre for Clinical Interventions , supported by the Australian government ’ s department of health .
Psychologists there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ distress tolerance skills.
” It ’ s free , it ’ s online , and it uses an evidence-based approach rooted in cognitive-behavioral therapy and mindfulness-based therapy .
It ’ s worth checking out the whole guide , but I ’ ll give a capsule summary of the process it recommends .
First , accept the distress you ’ re feeling .
Instead of engaging in your usual escape methods for avoiding uncomfortable emotions ( whether it ’ s bingeing TV , numbing out with alcohol , or whatever ) , commit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the emotion .
Second , watch the emotion .
Noting how it ’ s manifesting in your clenched muscles or using imagery to describe it ( “ this feeling is not me , it ’ s just like a cloud floating past in the sky ” ) may help you detach from it a bit .
Keep observing it until it naturally subsides .
Third , turn your attention back to a task you want to do in the present moment .
It can be a simple inward task like focusing on your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ volunteering to help people in need during the pandemic .
Expect that the distressing feelings will come back .
But know , too , that by actually facing them rather than running away from them , you ’ re teaching yourself that you ’ re strong enough to handle them .
If this is sounding a bit familiar , that ’ s because it echoes the strategies laid out by the experienced solitaries we met above , like the survivor of solitary confinement and the woman on the ersatz Mars mission .
Accepting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deeper into yourself , remembering your purpose — these are tried-and-true strategies for successful solitude .
You will find the same strategies echoed in other sources , from contemporary Western psychologists and mindfulness teachers to ancient Buddhist texts .
And perhaps there ’ s some comfort in that .
As alone as you might feel right now , remember that many human beings have experienced isolation before you , and they ’ ve left you their best tips for how to make the most of it .
In a sense , you ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
You ’ re also in community with the friends and family you have access to through your phone , Zoom , and so on .
We should absolutely keep using these distance-collapsing technologies .
But there ’ s a difference between using them from a place of desperation , where we ’ re scrambling to generate a constant stream of chatter to distract us from our aloneness , and using them from a place of mindfulness , where we ’ ve already faced the distress of being alone and experienced it naturally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , psychologists say , that Zoom dance party becomes a reward for approaching rather than avoiding our solitude .
Reporting for this article was supported by Public Theologies of Technology and Presence , a journalism and research initiative based at the Institute of Buddhist Studies and funded by the Henry Luce Foundation .

Many of us dread being alone. We find isolation uncomfortable or downright scary. If you want to know just how eager we are to avoid it, consider a scientific study that offered people a choice between giving themselves electric shocks or being alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. Believe it or not, many chose the electric shocks.
But here’s the good news: Being alone is a skill. And, just like any other skill, you can get better at it with practice. I want to suggest that honing this skill now can help you get through this pandemic winter. Instead of dreading being alone, you can lean into it.
Whether you’re skipping holidays with your family in an effort to contain the current coronavirus surge, or quarantined in your room because you have Covid-19, you’ve probably felt at least a momentary surge of panic at the idea of being physically cut off from your loved ones for days or weeks or months.
That’s a reasonable feeling: Social distancing is brutal. Full stop. Human beings have evolved over thousands of years to take comfort in one another’s presence, so when we’re isolated, it hurts us on a physiological level.
At the same time, we can probably recognize that some of our fear about being alone is not unique to the current pandemic. It’s a fear that has lurked in us for years, as we’ve forgotten — or perhaps never really learned — how to sit with ourselves, including with our uncomfortable thoughts and emotions.
“I think most of us are afraid to be alone with ourselves because getting to know ourselves is a very fearsome process,” Jack Fong, a sociologist who researches solitude at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, told me. To keep this fear at bay, lots of us have a podcast or TV show constantly playing in the background, or a rotation of friends we call one after another.
Many factors have conspired to make us bad at solitude. They’re mostly not our fault. As Jenny Odell lays out in her book How to Do Nothing, we live in a culture where sociability and constant connectivity are rewarded, and where choosing to be by yourself marks you out as a loser, crazy, possibly immoral.
And when we do find ourselves alone, we’re increasingly at the mercy of an attention economy that bombards us with ever-present, ever-pleasant distractions. With external stimulation always just a click away, it’s never been so easy to avoid our inner worlds. Why would you sit with a feeling like boredom or sadness if you can distract yourself from it by texting a friend, or bingeing a Netflix show, or launching a Zoom call?
And indeed, these technologies are the salves everyone seems to be proposing for pandemic-induced loneliness. Don’t get me wrong: They can be genuinely useful. Like I said, loneliness hurts us physically as well as mentally. I live alone, so to stay sane, I’ve engaged in my fair share of Zoom dance parties.
Nevertheless, these fixes feel unsatisfying because they’re all about how to avoid being alone instead of just, well, being alone. And that avoidance stands to make us even more scared of our solitude. Decades of psychology research have taught us that trying to escape a distressing emotion is a bad long-term strategy; it teaches our brain that we can’t handle that emotion, and our distress actually grows more intense.
So how can we use this opportunity not to escape solitude but to lean into it? We can learn from people who figured out how to do this long before the coronavirus came knocking.
What we can learn from survivors of solitary confinement
For starters, we need to distinguish between voluntary solitude and enforced solitude. Plenty of people who’ve experimented with the former — hermits and monks, philosophers and artists — have worthwhile lessons to teach us about being alone. But it’s people in the latter category whose experience is most instructive for us now.
Consider what Keith LaMar, who’s been in solitary confinement in a supermax prison for 27 years, recently told Mother Jones. I want to be clear that I think solitary confinement is a form of torture that should be abolished, and it makes our self-enforced, tech-enabled isolation look like a walk in the park. There is simply no comparing the two.
Yet LaMar — as well as Jason Rezaian, a journalist who survived solitary confinement in an Iranian prison — have discussed their experiences in the context of the wide-scale quarantining going on now, in an effort to help us through this period. So let’s consider LaMar’s insights:
Being in solitary confinement is really just being thrown upon yourself: You’re running around, just like people do in your regular life, and now all of a sudden you’re confronted with yourself, and find that in a lot of cases you haven’t really put anything into yourself to occupy yourself. Everything is outward directed. That’s what happened to me 27 years ago, and what happens to a lot of guys who are initially thrown into this situation — it’s like being thrown into the ocean. You have to learn how to swim. You have to learn how to deal with yourself. I’ve been lucky in a lot of ways. My cell has a bookshelf with three shelves, and there’s a table to sit and write. I have a lot of music, books to read. Not to distract myself from myself, but to take me deeper into myself. I paint, I work out, I do yoga, I meditate. I’ve watched quite a few people fall apart, lose their minds. But I went in another direction. So 27 years later I’m still sound in mind and body and spirit. I attribute that to just reading and cultivating myself. That’s the thing, when you’re thrown upon yourself, you realize you are more equipped than you realized. A lot of the system keeps us from realizing our own power. It’s a good opportunity for people to tap into that. … Hopefully young people being forced to stay home outside of the mainstream curriculum are able to get a glimpse of themselves and start pulling on that thread.
There’s a lot of wisdom in this perspective. In fact, it echoes many of the key observations scholars have made over the years about solitude.
First, there’s the idea that to succeed at solitude, you have to accept that you’re being “thrown upon yourself” — to confront your reality rather than opting for distraction. Then you have to “put something into yourself” — to make solitude a generative practice that takes you deeper into who you are and develops you further.
Matthew Bowker, a Medaille College researcher who studies solitude, says something very similar in The Handbook of Solitude. He notes that being adept at being alone “implies the capacity to generate meaningful and valuable experiences in the internal world, for if one wishes to be when alone and not merely to wither or starve, one must be able to generate and possess some of the vital stuff of being.”
In other words, you’ve got to quit seeing solitude as an experiment in subtraction, and start seeing it as an experiment in addition. What you’re adding is your self — a true self, because at last it’s you who’s building it, not anyone else. You’re no longer looking to other people for their attention or approval.
The psychologist D.W. Winnicott often drew a distinction between the “authentic self” and the “false self.” Without realizing it, he said, we look to other people to scaffold our sense of who we are. It’s they who perform the construction of our identity. When we’re alone — when their judgments and preferences are no longer there to shape our self-concept — it tends to break down. That can be terrifying. But it can also be a gift. Because when the false self falls away, it leaves space for you to build a more authentic self.
What we can learn from people who pretend to live on Mars
Another key ingredient to successful solitude, psychologists have found, is having a clear sense of purpose.
Steve Cole, a researcher at the University of California Los Angeles, studies interventions designed to help people cope with loneliness. He’s found that the ones that work tend to focus not on decreasing loneliness but on increasing people’s sense of purpose. Recalling one pilot program that paired isolated older people with elementary school kids whom they’re asked to tutor and look out for, Cole told Vox, “Secretly, this is an intervention for the older people.”
Philosophers have also noted the fortifying effects of a clear sense of purpose. “Nietzsche said if you find purpose in your suffering, you can tolerate all the pain that comes with it,” Fong, the sociologist, told me. “It’s when people don’t see a purpose in their suffering that they freak out.”
In 2003, Kate Greene moved into a geodesic dome on top of a Hawaiian volcano, where she spent four months pretending to be an astronaut on Mars. NASA funded the experiment because it needs to know how human beings deal with isolation, so that real missions won’t go kaput just because someone gets lonely. In a recent essay, Greene confesses that she had a hard time living in the dome. Separated from her loved ones and troubled by confusing information from mission support, it was hard to remember her sense of purpose. But when she did, it made all the difference, she writes:
Remembering that we were doing something that might be good for the future of human exploration and maybe even humanity kept me grounded when I wanted to be flying and let me fly when I felt heavy and stuck. To be part of something historic, to do something potentially grand for others — it was remarkable how focusing on that was often enough.
Billy Barr, who’s been living alone in an abandoned mining shack high up in the Rocky Mountains for almost 50 years, has very similar advice. He says we should all keep track of something.
In his case, it’s the environment. How high is the snow today? What animals appeared this month? For decades, he’s been keeping track of the answers to these questions, and his records have actually had a serious influence on climate change science.
Now, he suggests that people in isolation get through the coronavirus pandemic by participating in a citizen science project such as CoCoRaHS, which tracks rainfall.
“I would definitely recommend people doing that,” he told WAMU. “You get a little rain gauge, put it outside and you’re part of a network where there’s thousands of other people doing the same thing as you, the same time of the day as you’re doing it.”
He and Greene both also emphasize the importance of routines — the little daily rituals that anchor us in time and give shape to a day.
The rewards — and risks — of solitude
Isolation has many virtues. But, harnessed incorrectly, it can also harbor danger.
First, the virtues. A long line of nature writers — from William Wordsworth and Henry David Thoreau to Annie Dillard and Mary Oliver — have described how solitude allows them to reconnect with nature, and through nature, a deep bliss. Many artists insist that isolation is necessary for creative work. “I paint with my back to the world,” said the painter Agnes Martin, because “the best things in life happen to you when you’re alone.”
Most world religions, even if they’re ambivalent about solitude as a long-term path, acknowledge that it’s useful for fostering spiritual insight. The Hebrew Bible says Moses spent 40 days alone on Mount Sinai before receiving the Torah. In the Roman Empire, Symeon the Stylite lived on top of a 60-foot pillar — for 37 years! Hinduism and Buddhism both have rich traditions of solitary forest dwellers. And Christianity has countless recluses; my favorite is Julian of Norwich, who at age 30 asked to be permanently shut into a cell so she could have visions of God and write about them.
The Trappist monk Thomas Merton and the psychologist Carl Jung both pointed out that dissociating from society allows us to perceive and call out its illusions. “I am a solitary,” Jung wrote, “because I know things and must hint at things which other people do not know, and usually do not even want to know.”
Nietzsche, in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, suggested that solitude can heal us from an overstimulating culture (“Flee, my friend, into your solitude! I see you dazed by the noise of men”) and reconnect us to ourselves (“go into isolation ... seek the way to yourself”).
But isolation also comes with its fair share of danger. The problem is that, as Nietzche’s Zarathustra puts it, “whatever one brings into solitude grows in it, even the inner beast.” That can mean anxiety, or melancholy, or some other kind of distress. For this reason, the philosopher said “solitude is ill-advised” for many people.
“Nietzche was prescient enough to know that solitude is a dangerous project,” Fong told me. “If you are not ready for it, the cave you enter can be a very scary place. For those who have unresolved issues that may not have been attended to by a mental health expert, this may not be a good place to go.”
That’s why psychologists typically recommend gradual exposure. If being alone is scary to you, ideally you want to seek it out in small doses first, and then — once you’ve proven to your brain that it can in fact tolerate the distress — slowly increase the dose. If you’re in the midst of a full-blown panic attack, that’s not a good time to practice honing a new skill; you may need to first soothe the distress a bit. Engaging the senses to bring yourself back into your body is one commonly recommended way to do that (it’s no coincidence that everyone on social media is now baking sourdough bread and planting fragrant herbs).
Unfortunately, a pandemic doesn’t allow us to take the stepladder of solitude as gradually as we might like. It’s not ideal, but even under these circumstances, we can build up to the skill of being alone.
How to practice “distress tolerance skills” for being alone: A practical guide
The best step-by-step guide I’ve read for this purpose comes from the Centre for Clinical Interventions, supported by the Australian government’s department of health. Psychologists there have published a comprehensive guide to developing “distress tolerance skills.” It’s free, it’s online, and it uses an evidence-based approach rooted in cognitive-behavioral therapy and mindfulness-based therapy. It’s worth checking out the whole guide, but I’ll give a capsule summary of the process it recommends.
First, accept the distress you’re feeling. Instead of engaging in your usual escape methods for avoiding uncomfortable emotions (whether it’s bingeing TV, numbing out with alcohol, or whatever), commit to doing the opposite: Stay with the emotion.
Second, watch the emotion. Noting how it’s manifesting in your clenched muscles or using imagery to describe it (“this feeling is not me, it’s just like a cloud floating past in the sky”) may help you detach from it a bit. Keep observing it until it naturally subsides.
Third, turn your attention back to a task you want to do in the present moment. It can be a simple inward task like focusing on your breath, or an outward task like volunteering to help people in need during the pandemic.
Expect that the distressing feelings will come back. But know, too, that by actually facing them rather than running away from them, you’re teaching yourself that you’re strong enough to handle them.
If this is sounding a bit familiar, that’s because it echoes the strategies laid out by the experienced solitaries we met above, like the survivor of solitary confinement and the woman on the ersatz Mars mission. Accepting your isolation, letting it take you deeper into yourself, remembering your purpose — these are tried-and-true strategies for successful solitude. You will find the same strategies echoed in other sources, from contemporary Western psychologists and mindfulness teachers to ancient Buddhist texts.
And perhaps there’s some comfort in that. As alone as you might feel right now, remember that many human beings have experienced isolation before you, and they’ve left you their best tips for how to make the most of it. In a sense, you’re in community with them right now.
You’re also in community with the friends and family you have access to through your phone, Zoom, and so on. We should absolutely keep using these distance-collapsing technologies.
But there’s a difference between using them from a place of desperation, where we’re scrambling to generate a constant stream of chatter to distract us from our aloneness, and using them from a place of mindfulness, where we’ve already faced the distress of being alone and experienced it naturally subside. When we do the latter, psychologists say, that Zoom dance party becomes a reward for approaching rather than avoiding our solitude.
Reporting for this article was supported by Public Theologies of Technology and Presence, a journalism and research initiative based at the Institute of Buddhist Studies and funded by the Henry Luce Foundation.


vox--2020-12-22--One Good Thing: Watching Gordon Ramsay’s Christmas special is one of my favorite holiday traditions

One Good Thing is Vox ’ s recommendations feature .
In each edition , find one more thing from the world of culture that we highly recommend .
Christmas is a time to return to favorite movies and TV shows .
Every year , I revisit It ’ s a Wonderful Life and A Charlie Brown Christmas .
Plenty of other people have made traditions out of Die Hard or the Rankin/Bass Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or Home Alone .
Honestly , if you want to watch Hustlers every year because it has one memorable scene set at Christmas , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you not to !
But in recent years , I ’ ve started a new tradition .
I pull up YouTube , I curl up with my wife or some friends , and I watch Christmas With Gordon , a 2010 two-part special from the UK that was rebranded Gordon Ramsay ’ s Ultimate Christmas when it aired in the States .
It has everything I want out of a Christmas special : family togetherness , great recipes , and occasional shots of a man sharpening knives and then using them to destroy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of my favorite TV chefs .
He became famous for being incredibly angry all the time on his Fox reality show Hell ’ s Kitchen , but within the grammar of reality TV , his anger felt more performative than abusive .
It was opt-in anger , where the targets were a part of the performance as well .
And after Hell ’ s Kitchen became a hit , Ramsay immediately pivoted to being vaguely cuddly .
The shows Kitchen Nightmares and MasterChef made him seem like someone who was extremely passionate about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ toward his fellow humans .
He really wanted to help people be better chefs , or at least he was very good at playing someone who wanted that on TV .
And MasterChef Junior turned out to be his masterstroke , at least from an American perspective .
( His persona had long been friendlier in the UK . )
“ See ?
” the show seemed to argue .
“ He ’ s really good with kids !
” But if you want to see Ramsay ’ s appeal distilled into roughly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gordon is the program to watch .
The recipes are genuinely tasty .
( I ’ ve cooked several over the years . )
At least one is truly baffling — it ’ s a stuffing that seems to be mostly made out of pork .
And Ramsay seems at once incredibly warm around his family and slightly awkward , like he ’ s not sure how to get them involved .
Near the end of the special ’ s first part , Gordon ’ s mother arrives to help him prepare dessert @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to know that even Gordon Ramsay has a mom who gives him a hard time about his cooking .
Also , as I hinted above , there are several moments when he glares menacingly at the camera and sharpens knives , before destroying a Christmas ornament in each one of them , as if to remind you that , yes , he still gets angry — but only at inanimate objects .
British television has a long tradition of Christmas specials , in which the cast of a popular show gathers for a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sometimes , the show has been over for some time ; in the case of the original The Office , a two-part Christmas special functioned as the series finale and wrapped up the show ’ s stories over a year after the season two finale .
But more often , these specials are just a way to check in between seasons with your favorite series , at a time of year when checking in with old friends is tradition .
( Downton Abbey made a habit of airing a yearly Christmas special , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wild to me that the concept of a TV show ’ s cast reuniting for a Christmas special hasn ’ t caught on in America .
Christmas is a time when watching television as a family is a given for many people , and who wouldn ’ t want a quick check-in with the gang from Cheers or something ?
Sure , the canceled time-travel drama Timeless used the format to wrap up its story a couple of years ago , and a few shows have produced Christmas specials as lead-ins to new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one in 2016 , ahead of its second season , and HBO ’ s Euphoria just aired one as a prelude to the second season it will launch in 2021 .
But I think we need more specials popping up around the holidays , as a general rule .
Doctor Who produces a new episode almost every year as a Christmas one-off , no matter where it is in its production cycle .
We should have something like that , too !
Or at the very least , all our TV chefs should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pretending to be happy about it !
Until then , however , we can just keep watching Christmas With Gordon to see what happens when a notoriously grouchy chef puts on a smile for the holidays .
I know that most of Ramsay ’ s TV persona is an act .
I also think it ’ s amusing to see just how unnaturally his forehead wrinkles when he lets in the Christmas spirit , if only for a few seconds .
Also his gravy recipe rules .
You should really try it .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ — both in bits and pieces on Ramsay ’ s YouTube channel and in whole ( and in dubiously legal fashion ) elsewhere .

Christmas is a time to return to favorite movies and TV shows. Every year, I revisit It’s a Wonderful Life and A Charlie Brown Christmas. Plenty of other people have made traditions out of Die Hard or the Rankin/Bass Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or Home Alone. Honestly, if you want to watch Hustlers every year because it has one memorable scene set at Christmas, I’m not going to tell you not to!
But in recent years, I’ve started a new tradition. I pull up YouTube, I curl up with my wife or some friends, and I watch Christmas With Gordon, a 2010 two-part special from the UK that was rebranded Gordon Ramsay’s Ultimate Christmas when it aired in the States. It has everything I want out of a Christmas special: family togetherness, great recipes, and occasional shots of a man sharpening knives and then using them to destroy Christmas ornaments.
Gordon Ramsay is one of my favorite TV chefs. He became famous for being incredibly angry all the time on his Fox reality show Hell’s Kitchen, but within the grammar of reality TV, his anger felt more performative than abusive. It was opt-in anger, where the targets were a part of the performance as well.
And after Hell’s Kitchen became a hit, Ramsay immediately pivoted to being vaguely cuddly. The shows Kitchen Nightmares and MasterChef made him seem like someone who was extremely passionate about food and who was caring and empathetic toward his fellow humans. He really wanted to help people be better chefs, or at least he was very good at playing someone who wanted that on TV. And MasterChef Junior turned out to be his masterstroke, at least from an American perspective. (His persona had long been friendlier in the UK.) “See?” the show seemed to argue. “He’s really good with kids!”
Related MasterChef Junior offers a weekly lesson in being a better person
But if you want to see Ramsay’s appeal distilled into roughly 90 minutes of television, Christmas With Gordon is the program to watch. The recipes are genuinely tasty. (I’ve cooked several over the years.) At least one is truly baffling — it’s a stuffing that seems to be mostly made out of pork. And Ramsay seems at once incredibly warm around his family and slightly awkward, like he’s not sure how to get them involved. Near the end of the special’s first part, Gordon’s mother arrives to help him prepare dessert, as if the producers want you to know that even Gordon Ramsay has a mom who gives him a hard time about his cooking.
Also, as I hinted above, there are several moments when he glares menacingly at the camera and sharpens knives, before destroying a Christmas ornament in each one of them, as if to remind you that, yes, he still gets angry — but only at inanimate objects.
British television has a long tradition of Christmas specials, in which the cast of a popular show gathers for a one-off episode set around the holidays. Sometimes, the show has been over for some time; in the case of the original The Office, a two-part Christmas special functioned as the series finale and wrapped up the show’s stories over a year after the season two finale. But more often, these specials are just a way to check in between seasons with your favorite series, at a time of year when checking in with old friends is tradition. (Downton Abbey made a habit of airing a yearly Christmas special, for instance.)
It’s wild to me that the concept of a TV show’s cast reuniting for a Christmas special hasn’t caught on in America. Christmas is a time when watching television as a family is a given for many people, and who wouldn’t want a quick check-in with the gang from Cheers or something? Sure, the canceled time-travel drama Timeless used the format to wrap up its story a couple of years ago, and a few shows have produced Christmas specials as lead-ins to new seasons — Netflix’s Sense8 aired one in 2016, ahead of its second season, and HBO’s Euphoria just aired one as a prelude to the second season it will launch in 2021.
But I think we need more specials popping up around the holidays, as a general rule. Doctor Who produces a new episode almost every year as a Christmas one-off, no matter where it is in its production cycle. We should have something like that, too! Or at the very least, all our TV chefs should be forced to cook Christmas favorites while pretending to be happy about it!
Until then, however, we can just keep watching Christmas With Gordon to see what happens when a notoriously grouchy chef puts on a smile for the holidays. I know that most of Ramsay’s TV persona is an act. I also think it’s amusing to see just how unnaturally his forehead wrinkles when he lets in the Christmas spirit, if only for a few seconds.
Also his gravy recipe rules. You should really try it.
Christmas With Gordon is available on YouTube — both in bits and pieces on Ramsay’s YouTube channel and in whole (and in dubiously legal fashion) elsewhere. For more recommendations from the world of culture, check out the One Good Thing archives.


vox--2020-12-22--This week in TikTok: The dawning of the Age of Aquarius (apparently)

Hello from The Goods ’ twice-weekly newsletter !
On Tuesdays , internet culture reporter Rebecca Jennings uses this space to update you all on what ’ s been going on in the world of TikTok .
Is there something you want to see more of ?
Less of ?
Different of ?
Email rebecca.jennings @ vox.com , and subscribe to The Goods ’ newsletter here .
Have you been having really weird dreams lately ?
Been moody ?
Feel achy ?
It ’ s not PMS ( it might be PMS ) .
It could be your body telling you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Conjunction .
Astrologers and WitchTok have been extremely jazzed about the arrival of December 21 , when Jupiter and Saturn were unusually close together .
The winter solstice is considered a rather spiritual occurrence in many cultures , but in 2020 , it ’ s said to be extra important : The Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn supposedly marks a shift in humanity for years to come .
According to astrologer Susan Miller , the Great Conjunction “ sets the tone for the ethos for the next 20 years affecting the arts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ entertainment , designer fashion , food , music , mathematics , science , politics , and the government agenda .
In other words , everything !
” For the past 200 years , she told Vogue , Jupiter and Saturn have met in an earth sign , but this time , they ’ ll meet in an air sign .
“ Aquarius is the humanitarian sign ; you ’ re going to see people helping people on a grand scale , ” she said .
On TikTok , yesterday ’ s date was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ believe that we ’ re entering a 2,000-year Age of Aquarius , having just emerged from the Age of Pisces , which began around Jesus ’ s birth .
If the Age of Pisces was defined by monotheism and individualism , some TikTokers say the Age of Aquarius will be about communities and humanitarianism .
That would be nice !
Here are some of TikTok ’ s other predictions for the era beginning on December 21 : “ mass third eye awakenings , ” “ huge technological innovations , ” and “ our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This kind of language is common in connection with New Age beliefs like healing crystals or the power of manifesting , where information is often stated as fact even though you ’ re likely to hear conflicting messages between believers .
The 2,000-year astrological age theory , for instance , is a subject of dispute ; astrologers throughout history have claimed to determine when the Age of Aquarius actually begins , and many have predicted that it will not occur for another few hundred years .
Which is fine , of course — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part of what attracts people to astrology is choosing your own adventure .
But by far the best prediction that came out of the discourse around the Great Conjunction was a tweet claiming that on December 21 , Black people would be given superpowers .
“ On December 21 our Real DNA will be unlocked and majority will be able to do things that we thought were fiction , ” the woman wrote .
Then came the memes .
“ Black people after the December 21 update drop , ” replied one user @ @ @ @ @ @ @ man with glowing eyes .
Remixes of Avengers movies proliferated , as did self-deprecating jokes like “ already had the power of invisibility , ask my crush.
” On TikTok , families filmed themselves getting psyched up for their superpowers , receiving the ability to teleport after presenting the proper paperwork at the DMV , and on hold with customer service with the caption “ me on the 21st when nothing happens.
” “ As usual , Black Twitter saw something outlandish and ran with it , ” explains writer ( and friend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ We ’ re just having fun like we always do.
” It ’ s probably the most appropriate response to sweeping claims about massively complex topics like “ the future of humanity ” — no one ( well , except for the original tweeter ) seemed to actually believe that Black people would suddenly be able to fly .
Instead , the wild pronouncement was fodder for ironic yet incredibly creative jokes .
On the other hand , maybe we should all be taking this Great Conjunction thing very seriously .
December @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but by the time you read this , all of our existing oppressive power structures could come crumbling down and planet earth could be radiating the “ love frequency.
” Can ’ t wait !
• Reddit has acquired the shortform video platform Dubsmash , in a clear effort to compete with TikTok .
Dubsmash made headlines earlier this year as a thriving platform where Black creators like Jalaiah Harmon choreographed dances , only to be co-opted by white creators on the more “ mainstream ” TikTok .
• Doctors are flooding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus vaccines in an effort to reassure what seems to be a skeptical public .
• The long-awaited D ’ Amelio family reality show is coming to Hulu in the form of an eight-part docuseries in 2021 .
• Perez Hilton , TikTok supervillain , was finally banned from the platform after months of doing what he ’ s done throughout his career : harassing famous teenagers .
• Li Jin makes the compelling argument that the creator economy can ’ t survive without a much larger “ middle class ” — influencers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whose followings earn them decent livings .
“ The current creator landscape more closely resembles an economy in which wealth is concentrated at the top , ” she writes .
“ On platforms , less wealth concentration means lessening the risk that a would-be competitor could poach top creators and threaten the entire business.
” • Music blogs are back , this time on TikTok .
• Speaking of music , Cat Zhang in Pitchfork has an excellent rundown of all the weird stuff that happened to music on TikTok .
“ Thanks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s various subcultures — or the effectiveness of its algorithm at dangling just the right amount of spontaneity — the app still throws curveballs , ” she writes .
“ Who could have anticipated the Caretaker challenge , where teenagers listen to a six-and-a-half-hour experimental album simulating dementia ?
” • Why do sex workers keep getting kicked off TikTok ?
Instead of linking out to just one really great TikTok to round out the year , here are a whole bunch of them , courtesy of my Twitter thread of my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ super-duper viral this year ( some of which were probably too inappropriate to include in this newsletter ! )

Hello from The Goods’ twice-weekly newsletter! On Tuesdays, internet culture reporter Rebecca Jennings uses this space to update you all on what’s been going on in the world of TikTok. Is there something you want to see more of? Less of? Different of? Email rebecca.jennings@vox.com, and subscribe to The Goods’ newsletter here.
Have you been having really weird dreams lately? Been moody? Feel achy? It’s not PMS (it might be PMS). It could be your body telling you that it was preparing for the Great Conjunction.
Astrologers and WitchTok have been extremely jazzed about the arrival of December 21, when Jupiter and Saturn were unusually close together. The winter solstice is considered a rather spiritual occurrence in many cultures, but in 2020, it’s said to be extra important: The Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn supposedly marks a shift in humanity for years to come.
According to astrologer Susan Miller, the Great Conjunction “sets the tone for the ethos for the next 20 years affecting the arts, music, theatre, literature, entertainment, designer fashion, food, music, mathematics, science, politics, and the government agenda. In other words, everything!” For the past 200 years, she told Vogue, Jupiter and Saturn have met in an earth sign, but this time, they’ll meet in an air sign. “Aquarius is the humanitarian sign; you’re going to see people helping people on a grand scale,” she said.
On TikTok, yesterday’s date was an even bigger deal: Some astrologers believe that we’re entering a 2,000-year Age of Aquarius, having just emerged from the Age of Pisces, which began around Jesus’s birth. If the Age of Pisces was defined by monotheism and individualism, some TikTokers say the Age of Aquarius will be about communities and humanitarianism. That would be nice!
Here are some of TikTok’s other predictions for the era beginning on December 21: “mass third eye awakenings,” “huge technological innovations,” and “our 3D vibrations will transcend into 5D.” This kind of language is common in connection with New Age beliefs like healing crystals or the power of manifesting, where information is often stated as fact even though you’re likely to hear conflicting messages between believers. The 2,000-year astrological age theory, for instance, is a subject of dispute; astrologers throughout history have claimed to determine when the Age of Aquarius actually begins, and many have predicted that it will not occur for another few hundred years. Which is fine, of course — none of this is science, and part of what attracts people to astrology is choosing your own adventure.
But by far the best prediction that came out of the discourse around the Great Conjunction was a tweet claiming that on December 21, Black people would be given superpowers. “On December 21 our Real DNA will be unlocked and majority will be able to do things that we thought were fiction,” the woman wrote.
Then came the memes. “Black people after the December 21 update drop,” replied one user with a photo of a levitating Black man with glowing eyes. Remixes of Avengers movies proliferated, as did self-deprecating jokes like “already had the power of invisibility, ask my crush.” On TikTok, families filmed themselves getting psyched up for their superpowers, receiving the ability to teleport after presenting the proper paperwork at the DMV, and on hold with customer service with the caption “me on the 21st when nothing happens.”
“As usual, Black Twitter saw something outlandish and ran with it,” explains writer (and friend of The Goods) Athena Moore. “We’re just having fun like we always do.” It’s probably the most appropriate response to sweeping claims about massively complex topics like “the future of humanity” — no one (well, except for the original tweeter) seemed to actually believe that Black people would suddenly be able to fly. Instead, the wild pronouncement was fodder for ironic yet incredibly creative jokes.
On the other hand, maybe we should all be taking this Great Conjunction thing very seriously. December 21 seems to have gone fairly normally, but by the time you read this, all of our existing oppressive power structures could come crumbling down and planet earth could be radiating the “love frequency.” Can’t wait!
TikTok in the news
One Last Thing
Instead of linking out to just one really great TikTok to round out the year, here are a whole bunch of them, courtesy of my Twitter thread of my favorite videos that didn’t go super-duper viral this year (some of which were probably too inappropriate to include in this newsletter!)


vox--2020-12-22--The best $2,000 I ever spent: Whatever my grandmother needed this year

For most of this year , my grandmother and I have been lying to each other .
We ’ ve talked almost every day and the start of every conversation is the same .
“ Sorry , are you working ?
” she ’ d ask .
“ I just have one quick question.
” Except , she knew that I was working , and it was never one quick question .
“ Don ’ t worry about it , ” I ’ d say .
“ You can always call me .
If I can ’ t make it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just call back.
” That ’ s not true either .
I always pick up the phone when she calls .
It ’ s the most direct line to me , so reliable that if I send my mom to voicemail , she ’ ll call again from my grandmother ’ s phone .
My grandmother lied this year because she doesn ’ t want me to worry about her , and I lied because I always did .
Though she was in preternaturally good health , she could no longer leave the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ squarely in the “ at-risk ” category for Covid-19 , something she understood but still resented .
My parents , with whom she lived , stocked the fridge and the pantry and checked on her a few times a day , but most of the time they were working .
When they were home , they stayed on separate floors .
For safety ’ s sake , she spent her days mostly alone , reading or tending to the house or writing in her notebooks .
She told me about her orchids , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the books she was reading .
Before I ’ d hang up , I ’ d asked if she needed anything .
She always said no .
I never expected her to say anything different , but I asked anyway .
Help was something she offered to others and rejected for herself with equal force .
She ’ s always believed that the best way to take care of yourself is to take care of others .
When her friend ’ s husband died , she sent over enough food to fill the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to get a dog .
My grandmother was born during the Great Depression and came of age during World War II , and she internalized both stoicism for the greater good and an unmitigated generosity with whatever she had , no matter how much or little it may be .
Her young life was mottled with economic insecurity , so she made sure her own children had solid foundations on which to build their lives .
It was never about credit or gratitude .
She just wanted me to be happy .
My @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the other hand , were predicated on that benevolence and the security of the ’ 80s : stable jobs , thriving businesses , and the persistently privileged idea that no matter what , things would end up working out .
The recession , combined with their escalating alcoholism , strained their financial safety nets to the degree that there was no room for the added weight of me and my brothers when we left for college .
Or maybe they just forgot that we needed things , too .
I worked through college @ @ @ @ @ @ @ became exceptionally good at mental math .
In the winter months when my nannying hours were cut for the holidays , my grandmother made sure I had enough money to buy groceries , $ 100 appearing in my checking account .
She cosigned for my apartments until I got married and used her airline miles to fly me home for her birthday .
A few times a year , I ’ d get a $ 20 bill in the mail with explicit instructions to spend it on something frivolous that would make me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The money would just quietly show up .
When I tried to thank her , she didn ’ t want to hear it .
It was never about credit or gratitude .
She just wanted me to be happy .
After a few years of managing debt and financial insecurity , my life finally started to even out .
Once my own basic needs were covered , I indulged in small generosities .
I sent flowers to my friends when I missed them .
I bought my mom new shoes .
Drinks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I probably should have saved more or invested , but I didn ’ t see the point in making money if I wasn ’ t using it to make my life and the lives of those around me a little better .
Each purchase felt like an investment in pleasure or joy or comfort .
During quarantine , money has made it possible for me to solve problems from a distance .
Some were simple fixes , like batteries for the magnifying glass my grandmother used to read the mail .
Others @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Dreyer ’ s English when she told me she felt like contemporary grammar and usage had passed her by .
She was sad that she wouldn ’ t get to have a party on her birthday , so I ordered a dozen miniature cakes for my mom to leave on her friends ’ doorstep as my grandmother waved from the car .
Over the first six months , I spent $ 786 on miscellaneous items , not including the expedited shipping I often sprung for , feeling guilty about the impact of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doing it anyway .
Nothing was particularly urgent or even difficult to acquire , mostly things that felt too small or insignificant for her to bother someone else for .
But it was never a bother , just five taps on my cellphone to a confirmation email while she told me about her day .
I could show her in real time , from across the country , that she was not a burden and that it was okay to want more than simply what she needed .
Every few weeks , she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and I ’ d say I wouldn ’ t cash it , and she ’ d fuss at me for a few minutes .
As summer faded into fall and we adjusted to our homebound lives , my grandmother and I maintained the easy pattern of our daily phone calls , or “ visits , ” as she called them .
She let me spring for hardcovers , and I stopped asking her how much protein she ’ d had that day .
As the weeks wore on , she sounded a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like herself .
Then , while doing laundry , she fell .
She ’ d fallen a handful of times before , breaking her arm and bruising her tailbone , but nothing to that point had really slowed her down .
She remained insistent that her version of independence required being able to do everything she ’ d always done , climbing stairs and lifting boxes and flirting with the bank manager .
When she broke her arm last summer , she used her sling as a purse , which she said made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was more serious , a broken femur that required surgery .
I cried in California and spent $ 40 on delivery pizza for my parents .
All things considered , the surgery seemed to go well , but it was hard to get a straight answer on what her path forward looked like .
She was released from the hospital , then went back a few days later , her low blood pressure concerning the nurse .
They waited a few days , found nothing , and sent her home again .
When @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doctor simply said , “ She ’ s 97.
” She stopped calling .
She said she couldn ’ t remember my phone number after the surgery .
I called her every day , either in her hospital room or at my parents ’ house .
Most of the time she was sleeping , and when we did talk , she sounded weak and confused .
After weeks of looking at Covid-19 statistics and panickedly calling my virologist aunt , I booked a last-minute flight to Atlanta ( $ 798 ) .
My @ @ @ @ @ @ @ grandmother , and I couldn ’ t help from across the country in any meaningful way without power of attorney .
And , the unspoken , selfish part : I wanted to know if she was dying so I could say goodbye .
The first morning I was there , it appeared the answer was yes .
She wept in pain upon waking , gaping cries that broke my heart .
I adjusted the angle of her hospital bed and fed her oatmeal until she could stomach a painkiller .
When she settled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get groceries and I cried in the Publix parking lot .
But , after that first day , she improved .
True to form , she never asked for anything , but for the 10 days I was in town , I could give her what she needed .
Time , errands , the muscle to lift her small body .
I bought two sets of soft , extra-long twin sheets for her hospital bed ( $ 48 ) ; three button-up pajama tops so she didn ’ t have to lift her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) ; two bottles of Tylenol regular strength pain reliever ( $ 13 ) ; a storage caddy that attaches to the railings of her bed so her crossword puzzle didn ’ t get lost ( $ 16 ) ; CeraVe lotion for her cracked heels ( $ 18 ) ; a memory foam body pillow to stop her from rolling in her sleep ( $ 70 ) ; a new tube of Balm Dotcom in cherry because her lips were dry and peeling , and because she feels more like herself with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) ; and a long list of drugstore purchases she would find undignified for me to list .
With a little time and patience , we found a position she could sleep in that wouldn ’ t hurt her shoulders , the right positioning of her pillows to take the pressure off her knees .
She resisted eating unless someone was eating with her , so we made it an occasion .
I made complex , involved recipes or picked up the good sandwiches from the bakery down the road .
We had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ though we were both in sweatpants , it felt special .
The morning I left , she held me as tightly as she could and I promised I would be back soon , which I hope wasn ’ t a lie but might be .
I cried messy tears into my mask on the plane , feeling simultaneously so sad and so lucky .
What a gift to be near her when so many are suffering so much loss alone , who were not able to say goodbye , and how lucky was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ goodbye after all .
Of course , I should have known better than to hope so brazenly .
As quickly as she improved while I was there , she took a turn .
She stopped sleeping through the night , her back in constant pain , a bedsore persisting on her sacrum .
In what felt like a personal affront , she was unceremoniously discharged from physical and occupational therapy due to lagging progress .
Her doctor moved her to hospice care .
I raged at my mother .
“ She was doing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ How could they just give up on her ?
” The next day , I called my grandmother on the Echo Show I ’ d taught her to ask for the time and the weather ( $ 334 for two on Prime Day ) .
We drank our coffee , only her forehead visible on the screen , and I asked how she was doing .
“ Oh , you know , ” she said .
“ I ’ m not one to complain.
” She told me her shoulder was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ got drafty at night .
“ It ’ s not anyone ’ s fault , ” she said .
“ And I like being by the window.
” After we hung up , I spent $ 210 on an oversized knit blanket for her , the same pattern I ’ d bought for myself after I ’ d arrived back in San Francisco when I was feeling sad .
I ’ d justified that I ’ d have the blanket for years and years to come .
Buying it for her , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , an investment in a life and future that I am simply not willing to count out yet .
I understand that to have her with us now is nothing short of miraculous and that this may be the end of her life .
Even if that is true , I will continue to extend to her the generosity that she ’ s extended to me my entire life — love that showed me that I was always capable , but never , ever alone .
Anna Held is a writer based in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Catapult , The Cut , BuzzFeed , Runner ’ s World , and other publications .

For most of this year, my grandmother and I have been lying to each other. We’ve talked almost every day and the start of every conversation is the same.
“Sorry, are you working?” she’d ask. “I just have one quick question.” Except, she knew that I was working, and it was never one quick question.
“Don’t worry about it,” I’d say. “You can always call me. If I can’t make it to the phone, I’ll just call back.”
That’s not true either. I always pick up the phone when she calls. It’s the most direct line to me, so reliable that if I send my mom to voicemail, she’ll call again from my grandmother’s phone.
My grandmother lied this year because she doesn’t want me to worry about her, and I lied because I always did. Though she was in preternaturally good health, she could no longer leave the house; at 97, she was squarely in the “at-risk” category for Covid-19, something she understood but still resented.
My parents, with whom she lived, stocked the fridge and the pantry and checked on her a few times a day, but most of the time they were working. When they were home, they stayed on separate floors. For safety’s sake, she spent her days mostly alone, reading or tending to the house or writing in her notebooks. She told me about her orchids, what she was making for dinner, the books she was reading.
Before I’d hang up, I’d asked if she needed anything. She always said no. I never expected her to say anything different, but I asked anyway. Help was something she offered to others and rejected for herself with equal force. She’s always believed that the best way to take care of yourself is to take care of others. When her friend’s husband died, she sent over enough food to fill the fridge twice over, then told her to get a dog.
My grandmother was born during the Great Depression and came of age during World War II, and she internalized both stoicism for the greater good and an unmitigated generosity with whatever she had, no matter how much or little it may be. Her young life was mottled with economic insecurity, so she made sure her own children had solid foundations on which to build their lives.
It was never about credit or gratitude. She just wanted me to be happy.
My parents’ views on money, on the other hand, were predicated on that benevolence and the security of the ’80s: stable jobs, thriving businesses, and the persistently privileged idea that no matter what, things would end up working out. The recession, combined with their escalating alcoholism, strained their financial safety nets to the degree that there was no room for the added weight of me and my brothers when we left for college. Or maybe they just forgot that we needed things, too.
I worked through college, took out student loans, and became exceptionally good at mental math. In the winter months when my nannying hours were cut for the holidays, my grandmother made sure I had enough money to buy groceries, $100 appearing in my checking account. She cosigned for my apartments until I got married and used her airline miles to fly me home for her birthday. A few times a year, I’d get a $20 bill in the mail with explicit instructions to spend it on something frivolous that would make me smile.
I never asked for anything. The money would just quietly show up. When I tried to thank her, she didn’t want to hear it. It was never about credit or gratitude. She just wanted me to be happy.
After a few years of managing debt and financial insecurity, my life finally started to even out. Once my own basic needs were covered, I indulged in small generosities. I sent flowers to my friends when I missed them. I bought my mom new shoes. Drinks or dinner or dessert were on me. I probably should have saved more or invested, but I didn’t see the point in making money if I wasn’t using it to make my life and the lives of those around me a little better. Each purchase felt like an investment in pleasure or joy or comfort.
During quarantine, money has made it possible for me to solve problems from a distance. Some were simple fixes, like batteries for the magnifying glass my grandmother used to read the mail. Others were more existential, like a copy of Dreyer’s English when she told me she felt like contemporary grammar and usage had passed her by. She was sad that she wouldn’t get to have a party on her birthday, so I ordered a dozen miniature cakes for my mom to leave on her friends’ doorstep as my grandmother waved from the car.
Over the first six months, I spent $786 on miscellaneous items, not including the expedited shipping I often sprung for, feeling guilty about the impact of the purchase on the environment and then doing it anyway. Nothing was particularly urgent or even difficult to acquire, mostly things that felt too small or insignificant for her to bother someone else for. But it was never a bother, just five taps on my cellphone to a confirmation email while she told me about her day. I could show her in real time, from across the country, that she was not a burden and that it was okay to want more than simply what she needed. Every few weeks, she would threaten to send me a check, and I’d say I wouldn’t cash it, and she’d fuss at me for a few minutes.
As summer faded into fall and we adjusted to our homebound lives, my grandmother and I maintained the easy pattern of our daily phone calls, or “visits,” as she called them. She let me spring for hardcovers, and I stopped asking her how much protein she’d had that day. As the weeks wore on, she sounded a little less lonely, a little more like herself.
Then, while doing laundry, she fell. She’d fallen a handful of times before, breaking her arm and bruising her tailbone, but nothing to that point had really slowed her down. She remained insistent that her version of independence required being able to do everything she’d always done, climbing stairs and lifting boxes and flirting with the bank manager. When she broke her arm last summer, she used her sling as a purse, which she said made her even more efficient. But this was more serious, a broken femur that required surgery. I cried in California and spent $40 on delivery pizza for my parents.
All things considered, the surgery seemed to go well, but it was hard to get a straight answer on what her path forward looked like. She was released from the hospital, then went back a few days later, her low blood pressure concerning the nurse. They waited a few days, found nothing, and sent her home again. When I asked about her prognosis, the doctor simply said, “She’s 97.”
She stopped calling. She said she couldn’t remember my phone number after the surgery. I called her every day, either in her hospital room or at my parents’ house. Most of the time she was sleeping, and when we did talk, she sounded weak and confused. After weeks of looking at Covid-19 statistics and panickedly calling my virologist aunt, I booked a last-minute flight to Atlanta ($798). My mom was struggling to care for my grandmother, and I couldn’t help from across the country in any meaningful way without power of attorney. And, the unspoken, selfish part: I wanted to know if she was dying so I could say goodbye.
The first morning I was there, it appeared the answer was yes. She wept in pain upon waking, gaping cries that broke my heart. I adjusted the angle of her hospital bed and fed her oatmeal until she could stomach a painkiller. When she settled, my mom sent me out to get groceries and I cried in the Publix parking lot.
But, after that first day, she improved. True to form, she never asked for anything, but for the 10 days I was in town, I could give her what she needed. Time, errands, the muscle to lift her small body. I bought two sets of soft, extra-long twin sheets for her hospital bed ($48); three button-up pajama tops so she didn’t have to lift her arms above her head ($32); two bottles of Tylenol regular strength pain reliever ($13); a storage caddy that attaches to the railings of her bed so her crossword puzzle didn’t get lost ($16); CeraVe lotion for her cracked heels ($18); a memory foam body pillow to stop her from rolling in her sleep ($70); a new tube of Balm Dotcom in cherry because her lips were dry and peeling, and because she feels more like herself with a little color on ($12); and a long list of drugstore purchases she would find undignified for me to list.
With a little time and patience, we found a position she could sleep in that wouldn’t hurt her shoulders, the right positioning of her pillows to take the pressure off her knees. She resisted eating unless someone was eating with her, so we made it an occasion. I made complex, involved recipes or picked up the good sandwiches from the bakery down the road. We had dessert with every meal, and even though we were both in sweatpants, it felt special.
The morning I left, she held me as tightly as she could and I promised I would be back soon, which I hope wasn’t a lie but might be. I cried messy tears into my mask on the plane, feeling simultaneously so sad and so lucky. What a gift to be near her when so many are suffering so much loss alone, who were not able to say goodbye, and how lucky was I for this not to have been goodbye after all.
Of course, I should have known better than to hope so brazenly. As quickly as she improved while I was there, she took a turn. She stopped sleeping through the night, her back in constant pain, a bedsore persisting on her sacrum. In what felt like a personal affront, she was unceremoniously discharged from physical and occupational therapy due to lagging progress. Her doctor moved her to hospice care. I raged at my mother.
“She was doing so much better,” I said. “How could they just give up on her?”
“Well,” she said. “She’s 97”
The next day, I called my grandmother on the Echo Show I’d taught her to ask for the time and the weather ($334 for two on Prime Day). We drank our coffee, only her forehead visible on the screen, and I asked how she was doing.
“Oh, you know,” she said. “I’m not one to complain.”
“Do it,” I said. “Just a little.”
She told me her shoulder was acting up again and that her room got drafty at night.
“It’s not anyone’s fault,” she said. “And I like being by the window.”
After we hung up, I spent $210 on an oversized knit blanket for her, the same pattern I’d bought for myself after I’d arrived back in San Francisco when I was feeling sad. I’d justified that I’d have the blanket for years and years to come. Buying it for her, the purchase felt like an act of faith, an investment in a life and future that I am simply not willing to count out yet. I understand that to have her with us now is nothing short of miraculous and that this may be the end of her life. Even if that is true, I will continue to extend to her the generosity that she’s extended to me my entire life — love that showed me that I was always capable, but never, ever alone.
Anna Held is a writer based in San Francisco. Her work has appeared in Catapult, The Cut, BuzzFeed, Runner’s World, and other publications.


vox--2020-12-22--The Lost Year: A sudden crisis, online sex work, and a better understanding of privilege

This is The Lost Year , a series of stories about our lived experiences in 2020 , as told to Vox critic at large Emily VanDerWerff .
For many of us , 2020 has brought a decided decline in intimacy .
I don ’ t just mean sex .
I mean — when ’ s the last time you saw a friend face to face , maskless , to have an honest conversation ?
Weeks ?
Months ?
Almost a year ?
Rebecca lives in British Columbia and worked as a counselor before the pandemic .
But early in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to leave the nonprofit where she worked to return to sex work , which had been her job throughout her college career .
I was struck by the way she described the blurring line between the work she did as a counselor and the work she ’ s doing as an online sex worker , which introduces her to many people who just want someone to talk to when they ’ re lonely , and if that someone can also be sexy , that might be okay , too .
I was also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ story highlights some of the harshest realities that 2020 has underlined .
She has been able to make a living in online sex work ; the clients she previously served as a counselor , who were all sex workers as well , haven ’ t been as lucky .
It ’ s a question of privilege that clearly weighs on her , too , as you ’ ll see .
Here ’ s Rebecca ’ s story of her quarantine , as told to me .
Through all my undergrad and graduate school @ @ @ @ @ @ @ After I got a master ’ s degree , I went to study to become a counselor .
I thought that would be the end of my sex work journey , like I had used it to [ go on to ] bigger and better things , and now I ’ m a therapist and have worked through all this stuff of my own , so I can help other people .
I was really proud .
The work I was doing was so meaningful and special to me .
And then the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had an almost total breakdown .
Normally , clients that I ’ m counseling wouldn ’ t all be in crisis at the same time .
I thought , okay , this is not unexpected .
I knew at the beginning of the pandemic that things would start to get bad , especially as I was working with very marginalized people .
I worked at a nonprofit that provides a number of support services to people in any type of sex work .
Everyone I worked with was a former sex worker or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the assistance is with providing a safe space to talk , getting meals , and getting referrals to other services , like counseling , health care , housing support , and help for substance use issues .
The organization also tries to help people with exiting the sex industry if that ’ s what they want help with .
I had clients who are trans or Indigenous or queer , which added extra layers of marginalization on top of sex work .
My workplace didn ’ t really have a good system set @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clients .
Maybe some of this could have been prevented with a better structure .
My supervisor — who was external to the nonprofit I worked for — was always telling me , “ I think you really don ’ t have enough support .
It ’ s no wonder that you ’ re struggling.
” She asked me to advocate for that support .
I did bring it up to my boss [ at the nonprofit ] .
“ This is pretty tough .
Could we bring someone else onto the team @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
” She didn ’ t want to bring someone on in the middle of a pandemic and thought it would be difficult to interview people and introduce our clientele to a brand new counselor virtually .
I didn ’ t feel comfortable pushing it .
But I thought I had a handle on it .
Then two people in my sex work community died by suicide just a week apart .
My mental health really started to unravel .
I wasn ’ t well enough to keep counseling , so I went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what I knew how to do to take care of myself .
I gave a month ’ s notice that I would be leaving , and the organization actually hired two new people to take over for me when I left .
I was able to have wrap-up sessions with all of my regular clients , which , I ’ m hoping , made the transition easier for them .
I didn ’ t want to go back to escorting for obvious reasons , so I shifted into online sex work .
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doing for the last few months .
A lot of the online sex work clients I have been working with maybe would have seen in-person sex workers , and now that ’ s not really a safe option so they ’ re trying out the online connection .
Other people were always online or had been doing that for years anyway so it wasn ’ t that different for them .
A lot of people , when the pandemic happened , especially if they were living alone or had a really small bubble @ @ @ @ @ @ @ urge to reach out and connect .
Sometimes , [ connection via sex work ] has been a positive experience .
And other times , it ’ s actually amplified the loneliness for some of the customers .
They ’ re confronted with the reality that I ’ m talking to them because they ’ re paying .
It ’ s been interesting to figure out what people are seeking when they come to me .
There ’ s some that only want the sexy entertainment , and there ’ s some that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — the things that you would maybe talk to a partner about .
They would want to talk about feeling stressed out or feeling sad .
They wanted to feel understood .
I have to figure out the balance of : When do I be sexy ?
And when do I be someone they can talk to ?
I think some people have found it easier to open up online than in person because they feel less vulnerable .
There ’ s not someone right in the room that they have to face @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I ’ ve had some people open up to me a lot earlier than they might have , because it ’ s online , and they know in the back of their mind they could put their phone down or close the laptop .
They don ’ t have to face the consequences , necessarily .
I ’ m trained to listen and empathize and figure out what ’ s really underneath what someone is saying .
I can use that to my advantage in sex work .
But I started to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and it was my escorting experiences that made me realize I wanted to be a counselor .
By the time I was getting my degree in counseling , I already had a lot of listening skills because I ’ d already met a wide variety of people with all different kinds of backgrounds and life stories and situations and personalities .
My escorting experience made me a better counselor , and my counseling training refined those skills .
I ’ ve found it incredibly stressful to be in the role of entertainer and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think people were seeking sex workers to be a break from the pandemic , and I was going through my own crisis .
To put on a mask of happy or mask of sexy when I wasn ’ t feeling happy or sexy was really difficult and stressful .
It felt like there was no other option because what other work would I do ?
I would really like to move on from sex work .
It ’ s fine , but it ’ s not extremely meaningful or fulfilling for me .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ for it as a way to provide financially , especially in the pandemic .
I ’ m grateful to have a way to do it from home and be safe when I know so many people are out there at risk , interacting with people from their work .
But it doesn ’ t fulfill me .
I would like to get back to counseling or a related profession at some point in the future .
But this — I call it a meltdown or a breakdown because I just don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really shaken my confidence in my skills and my abilities .
It ’ s shaken my sense that I could do that in the future .
I see my own therapist once a week .
That ’ s been a lifesaver .
The shift happened for me where I was almost feeling like I was in fight-or-flight mode every day .
I ’ m really stressed out and going through a grief like I haven ’ t experienced before .
I ’ m not familiar with that intensity of loss .
I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ therapist , I was able to shift into seeing this as a longer-term situation and focus less on the day-to-day panic feelings and more on accepting reality .
This is happening .
I ’ m going to get through this .
I ’ m lucky to have my health and my income and my family and my friends .
Here ’ s something I ’ ve thought about the last few months .
The Black Lives Matter protests and seeing the disproportionate way Covid has affected people of color and marginalized groups — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , from a place of privilege .
It ’ s really highlighted inequalities and injustice that was already there but hadn ’ t been in my face before .
I struggled with feeling guilty about that .
Then I realized that was a waste of energy .
I don ’ t think it ’ s helpful to feel guilty .
It ’ s helpful to recognize privilege and figure out how to contribute to changing the systems .
I have to take care of myself , but I also don ’ t want @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and society I live in .
I want to be a person who contributes to making that a better place .
That ’ s part of why I wanted to work as a counselor to people from marginalized communities in the first place .
My background is in sociology , so I ’ m interested in power structures .
I ’ ve been disadvantaged as a woman , but I ’ m extremely privileged as a white person .
The pandemic has really brought out the ways in which I ’ m privileged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white woman , can hop online and start making enough money to support myself immediately is outrageously lucky .
I ’ m trying to make sense of it , all the ways that I ’ m struggling but also all the ways that I ’ m lucky .
Next : A new dress , a new self-acceptance , and a sudden onset of the soul

This is The Lost Year, a series of stories about our lived experiences in 2020, as told to Vox critic at large Emily VanDerWerff.
For many of us, 2020 has brought a decided decline in intimacy. I don’t just mean sex. I mean — when’s the last time you saw a friend face to face, maskless, to have an honest conversation? Weeks? Months? Almost a year?
Rebecca lives in British Columbia and worked as a counselor before the pandemic. But early in the pandemic, a personal tragedy led her to leave the nonprofit where she worked to return to sex work, which had been her job throughout her college career. I was struck by the way she described the blurring line between the work she did as a counselor and the work she’s doing as an online sex worker, which introduces her to many people who just want someone to talk to when they’re lonely, and if that someone can also be sexy, that might be okay, too.
I was also struck by the ways Rebecca’s story highlights some of the harshest realities that 2020 has underlined. She has been able to make a living in online sex work; the clients she previously served as a counselor, who were all sex workers as well, haven’t been as lucky. It’s a question of privilege that clearly weighs on her, too, as you’ll see.
Here’s Rebecca’s story of her quarantine, as told to me.
Through all my undergrad and graduate school, I worked as an escort. After I got a master’s degree, I went to study to become a counselor. I thought that would be the end of my sex work journey, like I had used it to [go on to] bigger and better things, and now I’m a therapist and have worked through all this stuff of my own, so I can help other people. I was really proud. The work I was doing was so meaningful and special to me.
And then the pandemic happened. Everybody I was counseling had an almost total breakdown. Normally, clients that I’m counseling wouldn’t all be in crisis at the same time. I thought, okay, this is not unexpected. I knew at the beginning of the pandemic that things would start to get bad, especially as I was working with very marginalized people.
I worked at a nonprofit that provides a number of support services to people in any type of sex work. Everyone I worked with was a former sex worker or a current sex worker. Most of the assistance is with providing a safe space to talk, getting meals, and getting referrals to other services, like counseling, health care, housing support, and help for substance use issues. The organization also tries to help people with exiting the sex industry if that’s what they want help with. I had clients who are trans or Indigenous or queer, which added extra layers of marginalization on top of sex work.
My workplace didn’t really have a good system set up to support the counselors or their clients. Maybe some of this could have been prevented with a better structure. My supervisor — who was external to the nonprofit I worked for — was always telling me, “I think you really don’t have enough support. It’s no wonder that you’re struggling.” She asked me to advocate for that support.
I did bring it up to my boss [at the nonprofit]. “This is pretty tough. Could we bring someone else onto the team to take on some of this load?” She didn’t want to bring someone on in the middle of a pandemic and thought it would be difficult to interview people and introduce our clientele to a brand new counselor virtually. I didn’t feel comfortable pushing it.
But I thought I had a handle on it. Then two people in my sex work community died by suicide just a week apart. My mental health really started to unravel. I wasn’t well enough to keep counseling, so I went back to sex work. It was what I knew how to do to take care of myself.
I gave a month’s notice that I would be leaving, and the organization actually hired two new people to take over for me when I left. I was able to have wrap-up sessions with all of my regular clients, which, I’m hoping, made the transition easier for them.
I didn’t want to go back to escorting for obvious reasons, so I shifted into online sex work. That’s what I’ve been doing for the last few months. A lot of the online sex work clients I have been working with maybe would have seen in-person sex workers, and now that’s not really a safe option so they’re trying out the online connection. Other people were always online or had been doing that for years anyway so it wasn’t that different for them.
A lot of people, when the pandemic happened, especially if they were living alone or had a really small bubble of people, were really feeling an urge to reach out and connect. Sometimes, [connection via sex work] has been a positive experience. And other times, it’s actually amplified the loneliness for some of the customers. They’re confronted with the reality that I’m talking to them because they’re paying.
It’s been interesting to figure out what people are seeking when they come to me. There’s some that only want the sexy entertainment, and there’s some that want the feeling of intimacy and connection — the things that you would maybe talk to a partner about. They would want to talk about feeling stressed out or feeling sad. They wanted to feel understood. I have to figure out the balance of: When do I be sexy? And when do I be someone they can talk to?
I think some people have found it easier to open up online than in person because they feel less vulnerable. There’s not someone right in the room that they have to face and say all kinds of vulnerable stuff. I’ve had some people open up to me a lot earlier than they might have, because it’s online, and they know in the back of their mind they could put their phone down or close the laptop. They don’t have to face the consequences, necessarily.
I’m trained to listen and empathize and figure out what’s really underneath what someone is saying. I can use that to my advantage in sex work. But I started to learn those skills as an escort, and it was my escorting experiences that made me realize I wanted to be a counselor. By the time I was getting my degree in counseling, I already had a lot of listening skills because I’d already met a wide variety of people with all different kinds of backgrounds and life stories and situations and personalities. My escorting experience made me a better counselor, and my counseling training refined those skills.
I’ve found it incredibly stressful to be in the role of entertainer and comforter. A happy face. I think people were seeking sex workers to be a break from the pandemic, and I was going through my own crisis. To put on a mask of happy or mask of sexy when I wasn’t feeling happy or sexy was really difficult and stressful. It felt like there was no other option because what other work would I do?
I would really like to move on from sex work. It’s fine, but it’s not extremely meaningful or fulfilling for me. I’m very, very grateful for it as a way to provide financially, especially in the pandemic. I’m grateful to have a way to do it from home and be safe when I know so many people are out there at risk, interacting with people from their work. But it doesn’t fulfill me. I would like to get back to counseling or a related profession at some point in the future. But this — I call it a meltdown or a breakdown because I just don’t know what to call it — has really shaken my confidence in my skills and my abilities. It’s shaken my sense that I could do that in the future.
I see my own therapist once a week. That’s been a lifesaver. The shift happened for me where I was almost feeling like I was in fight-or-flight mode every day. I’m really stressed out and going through a grief like I haven’t experienced before. I’m not familiar with that intensity of loss. I think eventually, with the help of my therapist, I was able to shift into seeing this as a longer-term situation and focus less on the day-to-day panic feelings and more on accepting reality. This is happening. I’m going to get through this. I’m lucky to have my health and my income and my family and my friends.
Here’s something I’ve thought about the last few months. The Black Lives Matter protests and seeing the disproportionate way Covid has affected people of color and marginalized groups — I’ve been watching from outside, from a place of privilege. It’s really highlighted inequalities and injustice that was already there but hadn’t been in my face before.
I struggled with feeling guilty about that. Then I realized that was a waste of energy. I don’t think it’s helpful to feel guilty. It’s helpful to recognize privilege and figure out how to contribute to changing the systems. I have to take care of myself, but I also don’t want to disconnect and disengage from the culture and society I live in. I want to be a person who contributes to making that a better place. That’s part of why I wanted to work as a counselor to people from marginalized communities in the first place.
My background is in sociology, so I’m interested in power structures. I’ve been disadvantaged as a woman, but I’m extremely privileged as a white person. The pandemic has really brought out the ways in which I’m privileged. That I, as a thin white woman, can hop online and start making enough money to support myself immediately is outrageously lucky. I’m trying to make sense of it, all the ways that I’m struggling but also all the ways that I’m lucky.
Next: A new dress, a new self-acceptance, and a sudden onset of the soul