2020 is a Dumpster Fire and These Women Will Save Us

I have shared a text message thread that is now years long with a group of deeply connected and supportive women friends. Recently, during a week of unspeakably difficult Covid-era life events, our friend Susan aptly gave this text thread an official group name “2020 is a Dumpster Fire and These Women Will Save Us.” Yep. That’s us.

Women get shit done. We handle stuff. Women take on life altering issues quietly and daily, behind the scenes, off sides and we take care of each other. From bearing witness to the pain of our sisters, to moving swiftly into action without a need for second thoughts, praise or public acknowledgement, women are an unwavering force to be reckoned with. No wonder the male dominated “establishment” is so dedicated to keeping us down.

Women are also tired.  This pandemic year of 2020 has worn us out. We are outraged. We are spent. We are holding each other up 27 ways from Sunday and there is no rest in sight. Some of us are sick, or have been sick or will get sick. And we are just so damn exhausted.

I am blessed to have strong women in my life. These women cross income, race, sexual orientation, education and so many diversity lines. They cross the generation gap. They are decades older, decades younger, or only a day or two different in age. The one common thread: they are badass. From single moms who put themselves through college, a masters and a PhD, to small business owners who build from the ground up to women writing books to women leading fast growing tech companies, to retired women mentoring us younger ones, these women pull together and make change happen.

But even the strongest, most capable, most “together” (if that’s even a thing) women I know are worn threadbare while 2020 keeps picking at our frayed edges day by day.  

Yesterday I was conversing with a friend about our own well being as we support other women around us. She said “It is seriously all hands on deck in every direction right now. Thank you for holding steady…good thing we are old enough to have seen some stuff because even though it is challenging, we are holding it together.” Yes, we are holding it together. Barely. And some days, not at all.

Women cope with a ton of challenges every single day. It’s hard (and wonderful too at times) to be a woman. The year 2020 has leveled up its game like no other in recent history and now the already back breaking hard of life is back dropped by global pandemic. Right now, today, this week, this month, this whole year women in my life are facing into situations we could have never dreamed of outside a dystopian novel. Not only have the routines of our days and weeks  been rocked by one seismic shift after another, but the very fabric of our lives has been wrenched away, forcing us to create a new way of being in the world. There is a limit. And we are reaching it.

Text threads are saving our lives. Wine and wifi are the tools of our trade. A text thread and we have a to-do list created, action steps outlined and women stepping up and taking on. In fact, we may be more efficient than ever because none of us have any extra bandwidth. We are more focused and honest about what we need and how we are really doing. Pandemic-free from many machinations of social posturing, we are speaking our truths. And they aren’t pretty.

The gut wrenching, soul crushing, events we have faced together in the last months are doing their level best to bring us to our knees. In the last months we have masked up to do work days with a friend in the middle of a divorce who was desperate to get her home on the market in order to complete a much needed ending and to secure new beginning. From finding a way to safely distance while packing to painting to building retaining walls, we showed up. We organized, packed food and drinks, led the charge and the paint brush brigade, then held our friend from and awkward and infuriatingly safe distance as she wept with exhaustion and grief.

We are holding up women who have made the courageous and terrifying decisions to leave their abusive partners, calling 9-1-1, filing protective orders and leaving their home for safety. Quietly and vigorously we have circled: offering housing, feeding, providing, supporting. No judgment, no drama, just loving and practical support, acknowledging her courage and bearing witness to the impediments faced. As court orders are navigated, financial accounts are swiftly restructured she secures basic safety and food for herself and her children. We mask up. We show up. We take supplies and do research for resources and above all, we make sure she knows she is not alone.

Just this last month we have held the hands of a dear friend as she walked two beloved grandparents through the end of their lives. For those that think Covid-19 is hoax, tell that to this precious women who has lost both paternal grandparents due to Covid-19 and related complications within 27 days. This is the heartbreaking, blindsiding, traumatic loss of a generation gone forever except to the heart and memories of a granddaughter and a grieving family. She won’t ever forget what a devastating time this was in her family’s history. I can’t imagine that we will either.

We are walking each other through medical issues with family members, when we are not allowed to be with them at the hospital as advocates or to comfort. Through ER admissions, emergency surgeries and hospitalizations during the time of Covid-19, we are helping each other formulate coherent thoughts. What information do providers need to know? What questions do we need to be asking? In the midst of panic and pain, what are the best ways to communicate with medical providers from the phone or parking lot? We bolster each other up through fear and endless worry.

We are standing by daughters and wives who cannot have contact with their beloved mothers and partners who are living in health care facilities. Together we are holding our breath with them, praying that Covid-19 bypasses their care facility, or praying with them as Covid-19 sweeps through. We have only the reports of staff to hold onto as their dementia deepens due to the lack of social contact and attentive family visits. We walk each other through anxiety and pain as the end of life for a beloved family member or friend draws near, knowing that we cannot hold their hands or ease their passing.

Quietly, steadfastly, we are supporting women as they are losing jobs, working the front lines as teachers who weep after the school day, as health care workers whose faces are bruised and sore from daily wearing of masks and whose bodies and hearts are weary with fatigue. We are supporting women who are retail and food service workers, fearing all the time for themselves and their families, but having no choice but to show up, often in places where safety precautions are “recommended” but not enforced.

We are beside women in their frustration and in the overwhelm of moving children back and forth through e-learning, in-person school, back to e-learning while managing meals, working from home, scrabbling for safe and ever-changing needs for childcare and heaven forbid, trying to find our way through individualized education plans for some of our kiddos.

One of the most incredible things to me is that so many of these women are in caring professions, meaning that every day, all day their work lives are about taking care of others, all while living in the midst of these deeply personal ordeals. Some of these women don’t just have one of these experiences happening but 2 or even 3 at once. Our nerves are on the edge. The auxiliary tank of emotional reserve is running on fumes.

In the midst of this world-burning-down chaos I still find gratitude. I am ever so grateful for all the women in my circles. I am grateful for the deep commitment, respect, love, council and sacred space that so many women are holding for one another. I am grateful for the invisible but very real text threads keeping us all alive and clawing us back to a bit of sanity when we need a place to be honest about how damn hard it is.

Despite our exhaustion, we will keep showing up. Hang in there. Reach out. Say what you need. None of us are getting through this alone. We can’t. It’s not even safe to try. When one of us falters, the others help her rise. I got you today. Tomorrow, when I’m the one falling apart, you got me. 

By the end, we will be scorched, threadbare, bone tired and scarred, but we will get through this together. 2020 is a dumpster fire and these women will save us.