Our New Dance Begins

Our Make-Believe Worries Disappear When the Danger Is Real

“Your parents let you watch The Haunting?” Cathy K bright pink lips hardened in straight, disbelieving line.

Maybe high school was hard that day. Our new babysitter’s boyfriend ditched her for someone with puffier hair. She failed a math test and her mommy yelled at her. She was helpless against adorable, irresistible kids who brought sweetness, light, and truth wherever we went.

Whatever the reason, better judgment lost out and she made room for us on on the couch. Little kids watched the horror movie that ruined closets, creaking stairs, and doors that swing open for no reason.

The next time Cathy babysat us, it was Jaws. Now our beloved ocean was filled with kid-eating sharks — and the sandy-bottomed town pool wasn’t safe either.

By the end of that summer, nowhere was safe. My sister jumped into bed so monsters wouldn’t get her. I went nowhere alone. My other sister slept with the lights on. None of us ventured into the basement.

Our cat fell out of a tree and almost died. My best friend moved away. Our favorite sitter Cathy K started college and the new one made us go to bed on time so she could do her homework.

Worries, fears, and anxiety took over. We were instructed, guided, goaded, and bullied to understand it was a dangerous world. The mean guys were everywhere, waiting for us to make a mistake. An asteroid was going to destroy our planet and we would die unless the prehistoric monsters came back to life and killed us first.

No matter what we did, things were bad and they were going to get worse.

Your only hope was to do your best. Be very good and follow every rule, even the ones you don’t know or understand, because then you’ll go to heaven when you die.

You were going to die very soon anyway, so you better be good.

Or else.

Despite all the best instruction, some of us managed to grow up. A few of us found ways to enjoy this very scary, terribly wrong world even though it wasn’t real and was going to be gone very soon because we screwed up.

There was no heaven, but there was hell — the one here and now and the one coming soon.

Still, we fell in love, dreamed big and won bigger, worked and played and loved life.

Not all of us, of course. They were aware of that undercurrent beneath the beautiful, sparkling surface. Doom was coming and there was nothing we could do but curl up under our desks.

Despite their best warnings and most urgent pleas, we didn’t listen.

It’s not that we didn’t hear them. It’s not that they were wrong.

It’s that we were blithe idiots, unwilling to see what was really going on.

And then?

COVID-19.

Definitely unexpected. Definitely peril and resounding warning of long-ignored and now-obvious things we should have done.

But we didn’t.

So here we are, figuring out what we do next.

Jobs are gone — some of them forever and others for right now. Families are wrecked, grieving, and scared. What was once an inconvenience is now a major, big deal. Our favorite candy is out of stock everywhere.

Go out into the world again or stay home? Open or close our business? Retaliate and wreak vengeance? Take the money and run? Curl up under our desks?

Whatever we decide, we decide for ourselves what we create.

Things that once mattered no longer do.

Things that once drove us out of our minds don’t raise our now calmer pulse.

The worst things have happened for many of us. And we’re still here.

Yes, just like in the movies.

Only, no one’s coming to save us. There is no magic potion or super hero from another world who’s going to fix everything and make it the way it was (which, let’s face it, wasn’t so perfect and shiny after all).

We’re going to save ourselves.

No one can do it for us.

We can’t buy it, game it, or win it. There is no perfect look or behavior or clever maneuver that will win us love, riches, or genuine satisfaction (there never was and there never will be).

There is no going back to before.

The only thing we can do is hold hands and walk together toward our next. There are definitely monsters and scary things, but we’re together and we’ve made it through this unimaginable horror, so we can do this.

Old worries, old problems?

Look very different from the other side.

Forget make-believe monsters and live.