Buying delicious-smelling candle a want, not a need
- Melissa Herrera: Not Waiting for Friday
- April 27, 2020
- 2397
I’ve lamented I haven’t been more productive during this time of being at home. I’ve seen people spring cleaning, hauling out junk from their garages and wiping down walls with Murphy’s Oil Soap.
I love the smell of Murphy’s Oil Soap. I like being organized and clean as much as the next person, so I told George one night that “I see a lot of people being productive and doing things like cleaning and purging.” And you know what his response was? “We aren’t those people, babe.”
Let me just tell you that at that moment I couldn’t have loved him more. He knows me, and I know him, and if we decide to clean and purge, it’ll be when we feel like it. With those words he sent my anxiety away, allowing my shoulders to relax and my chest to expand with air. We sank softly into the couch and let the cares of the day disappear. That’s what good partners do: They calm you, not make the hairs raise on the back of your neck.
I’ve often said I feel driven to keep my lawn and gardens looking nice (which is why seeing others being productive gave me anxiety), and that’s probably because we foster a culture of perfection here. If your lawn is long and littered with sticks, you must be lazy, unorganized and unwilling to keep up with the status quo.
Our American economy and the drive to succeed is much the same. Capitalism will bring you the American dream if you run yourself hard enough, no matter the cost. If you don’t succeed, you haven’t worked hard enough yet. My husband and I have tried to unravel this type of thinking within our family. Work hard, yes, but not at the cost of your mental health and family. There was never a job or paycheck so important it took precedence over our kids or relationship.
Revealing to me is the push to send the economy back into overdrive and end the stay-at-home order. I’ve seen protests demanding the “end of tyranny” (truly, tyranny has been invoked) when reality says it’s a drive to force people back to work at the risk of their health and the health of the public. Wondering if the definition of an “essential worker” surprised anyone. I’m guessing the logic being used is that our right to work is more important than ensuring domestic tranquility or promoting the general welfare of everyone in the nation.
Maybe it’s because we don’t like being told what to do, not even for the sake of (at this writing) the 42,000 people who have so far died of COVID-19.
I do not mind being inconvenienced for a tiny fraction of my life for the sake of public health. We can reopen business, but we cannot bring back existing human lives. Can we not go for several months without visiting the salon? Maybe the gray hair that’s slowly creeping into my red highlights really is my crowning glory. I’ll wear it proudly if it means staying out of the salon would stop the virus from spreading.
I can go a long time without buying delicious-smelling candles and décor for my home at gift shops if it stops the virus from spreading. I don’t need to visit my beloved movie theater — one of my greatest indulgences — if it stops the virus from spreading. I don’t feel a need to worship at the feet of the American economy gods because I feel bored and inconvenienced at home.
Maybe we have too much freedom. Our Constitution has granted us every conceivable power to walk a pathway in this world at our own discretion and direction that the very minute our leaders use their leadership to keep us safe we cry “government control.”
We can’t save everyone with our actions, but we can try without complaint. And when we go back to what will be a new normal, I hope we remember this somber time as doing our part for a country and people we love, that most other countries in the world did the same, that we listened to the experts and didn’t spread fear, and that we did it for humanity — especially those we lost along the way.