A message for those who need it:

Emotional labor is actual labor.

You got kids home with their big feelings in the context of a world full of anxiety and both you and they are without the outlets that normally help them to make sense of all of it (school, friends, sports teams, just playing in the goddamned park)? It's a lot of work.

You have spouses home either managing telework, or are out of work, and managing their big feelings and frustrations along with your cooped up kids? Also a lot of work.

And you're either on the phone or skyping or standing outside your parents' windows and waving and loving them up from far away and trying to make them feel better, even though the need to hug them is so sharp you feel like your insides might shatter. That's also labor.

And you're planning meals and trying to minimize exposure and rationing dumb stuff like parmesan cheese and frozen goddamn peas because that's two meals instead of one if I measure right, and trying to make mealtime an occasion for joy. Good lord, is that some labor.

And you have kids who are worried about falling behind and kids who are worried about their futures and kids who are worried that there is even going to be any future, and somehow you have to remember how geometric theorems work because this homework is due tomorrow. Labor.

And then you want to make sure the dishes are clean because you had no idea it was possible to go through that many bowls in a day. And you want to create spaces for learning and spaces for games and spaces for just sitting quietly with a book, and there is just not enough space.

And you remember - sometime and somewhere and maybe in a different life and a different universe altogether - that you used to be able to make progress on your projects. You used to be productive. You remember it even though it seems so far away that you can barely believe it.

And you are trying to stay connected to your friends. And you are trying to check in on your neighbors. And you are trying to make sure your aunties are okay and your weird uncle who hasn't been to the doctor since the eighties because "that's how they get you." He needs care too

And then, at the end of the day, you lay in bed and don't sleep, and you worry about your partner and you worry about your kids and you worry about who you might lose this year and you worry about your loved ones who work in hospitals. And you worry about the world.

And you know that most likely no one is really worrying about you. They are too busy depending on you.

Honey, I'm worried about you. And I'm holding you in my heart right now.

This is a lot of work. And I'm having lots of side conversations with creative folks who are used to making a living by their wits, who have found themselves at the ends of their wits, and are berating themselves for not doing enough.

Darlings. Please give yourselves a break.

It's so much goddamned work.

I see you.

And you are doing a good job.

I hope you are taking a moment to love yourself up. I'm going to shine love at you, all day, from here.