No one can sleep.

Randy and I were just settling into bed after watching Lady Bird when Zeke came into our room. He opened the lid of his water bottle, took a big swallow, and put it down on my nightstand before turning to look at me expectantly. Over the past several nights he has made his way into our bed at some point during the night, a practice which he had long since abandoned. But since the quarantine began he has started turning up again. Usually he snuggles in between Randy and me and falls back asleep right away. If I’m lucky I fall back asleep too until I realize I’m so close to the edge of the bed that it seems wiser to relocate to the futon in the office.

Since it was so early, relatively speaking, that we weren’t even asleep, I suggested I bring Zeke back to his room. There I found Zoe illuminated by the light of her computer. She had supposedly gone to bed a couple hours earlier. She has had trouble falling asleep for years, but it’s gotten worse lately. Of course it doesn’t help that she sleeps late every day. I am tired of dragging her out of bed when she doesn’t actually have to be anywhere.

Today was a rough day. I am usually an optimist although I certainly have my share (or more) of anxiety. But today I just felt crushed. Bombarded by bad news. Overwhelmed by uncertainty. Unable to motivate my kids to do anything. Barely able to make myself do anything. I keep seeing all these messages on social media about how we should support small businesses and artists and buy gift cards. I don’t have the money for that. I keep seeing all these messages about how we need to come together as a community during this crisis and support the food bank and other nonprofits. I’ve built my entire career on helping nonprofits, but I can’t donate now, when my income has slowed to a trickle.

A friend texted me “those messages aren’t for you.” My sister said I already do a lot for the community. My enneagram type is #2, often called the helper or the giver. Enneagram types all have strengths and weaknesses, and #2s —when things are not going well, say during a global pandemic, feel like they’re not enough. Type twos subconsciously feel like if they’re not doing enough for other people, they are unworthy. I have worked to overcome this unhealthy tendency for decades, and at times I think I’ve come pretty far. But then coronavirus hits and we’re quarantined at home and supposed to homeschool our kids and do our jobs and help our friends and family and neighbors—from a safe distance of course—and then how on earth could I possibly be doing enough to help? I couldn’t.

Thank God for my people who text me off my ledge when I need it. I received a lot of empathetic messages. I won’t lie—I cried a lot today. This thing is hard. I know we are super privileged and lucky and so far healthy (knock wood) but it is really freaking hard to have everything you’re used to called into question all of a sudden with no understanding of what comes next or how you’ll come out the other side.

I put a lot of thought and effort into being a good parent. And I realize that’s much easier to do when my kids go to school every day and I have time to work, socialize, eat, and just be in the world on my own. It feels counterintuitive to prioritize myself over my kids when my kids are in the same room, or even in the same house. Our house is small. There are not a lot of places you can go to have privacy, and the floors all creak. You can hear through the vents.

Every Wednesday the Unitarian Universalist Association sends out an email called Braver/Wiser with short essays by UU ministers and seminarians. I was struck by a recent piece https://www.uua.org/braverwiser/two-sides-same-coin about highly sensitive people. I first read about this concept several years ago, but I didn’t tell many people that it described me because I knew they would laugh it off, just like how the author writes that it sounds like “hysterical,” or some other disparaging term. Like snowflake.

I’ve come to realize the highly sensitive classification applies—at least for me—to both physical and mental stimuli. I can hear conversations that other people don’t. Strong smells can make me feel instantly ill. I can often intuit what people are going to say or do just before they say or do it. Not like I’m psychic, but perceptive.

I am not trying to say I’m the only person who is struggling in the unbelievable new reality of our current existence — far from it. Just that I understand why no one in my house is sleeping. It’s quarter to two and my mind is still wide awake with no signs of slowing.