(1/5) Your most important job is to keep your family safe. If in-laws or parents or grandparents are pressuring you to join them for the holidays... if they insist you will ruin the holidays for everyone if you stay home...

(2/5) if they ridicule you for being “paranoid”... if they call other family members and turn them against you... if they beg, threaten, or guilt you...

(3/5) Just know it isn’t really about you. They need to pretend that everything is ok or that they are the exception. They need you to validate that life lie for them because this pandemic is hard emotionally. And lots of folks can’t do emotionally hard things.

(4/5) So they deny, rationalize, check out, and surround themselves with others who do the same. And they are mad when you choose to stay home because you are bursting their bubbles. But you know what else you are doing? YOU ARE SAVING THEIR LIVES. Burst away.

(5/5) In the end, compassion, which chips away at human suffering, doesn’t have to be “polite” or even understood by others to work.

Giving thanks for all of you masked compassionate souls doing the hard things. #RiperDaysAhead