Pandemic Reflections
The Year I Forgot How to Trust My Gut
The pandemic got me stuck in emergency mode. Here’s how an actual emergency-room visit snapped me out of it.
If you’re not a working parent, let me share a Cliff’s Notes version of what it feels like (to me, anyway) in normal times: You figure out your life down to the minute. You find the best and most convenient childcare you can afford. You arrange your commute around this childcare. You can no longer arrive early or stay late at work, so you stay rigidly on task (burnout-spaciness days aside) and dash for the elevators the moment the clock strikes five. You curse traffic or stalled subway trains and school breaks. You fly into rooms breathlessly apologizing for being late. You pray no one gets sick. Your life is suddenly an intricate design made of dominoes: One wrong move and everything comes tumbling down.
My second child was born in October 2019, and the idea of going back to work with not just one but two small people whose care I had to manage was daunting, to say the least. But by February, I was ready: I’d quit my previous job and was about to start at a new company (Medium!) that, among other things, was more flexible and family-friendly. I bought an excellent breast pump (the Ameda Mya, look it up!). I worked…
