Our brave new world

I feel very lucky that I still have my part-time job as an online tutor for college students.  It’s absolutely never boring – and, as Anna said in the musical The King and I, “When you become a teacher, by your students you are taught.” I learn so much through their essays. If we have a live session, I learn so much through their questions and concerns. What a privilege to work with them.

I applied for for this job last May with the original intention of beating any chemo brain out of my system.  I wasn’t sure I had much chemo brain, but I wasn’t taking any chances, either.  I was also looking for a new sense of purpose.

But for the first time, I am feeling a sense of guilt over the fact that I’ve had a cancer diagnosis and treatment within the past two years. It puts me in the high at-risk category, especially combined with my age. I am not able to get out and help other people through this. I’m not someone who can go out and pack meals for schoolkids who need it so badly. I have a sewing machine, but it’s risky for me to go out and get material to sew face masks for our health care workers – and it would be risky for me to go and deliver them someplace.

The best way I can help is to stay at home. I have a renewed sense of gratitude for my home, which is fulfilling its original intent to serve as an office as well as a home (I have both taught and worked online of and off for many years.). I have a huge sense of gratitude for my neighbors and our agreement to check in on each other. I have always been a fan of technology, but these days I am even more so – it’s so lovely to feel really connected with friends and family members.

I think the other way I can help is to provided reasoned commentary on some issues, and to lift people up on others.  I have a dear, long-time friend and colleague who just lost her daughter in a car accident, and that puts another perspective on this. Just because we are in the middle of a pandemic doesn’t mean that other things in life will stop happening. Some of us will have more than we can bear. The rest of us can help lift them up until they are able to bear it.

It’s no cliche to say we will move through this together. If we don’t, then we will simply crash separately. Let’s not let that happen.