Epic quest progress report: Today is day 28. Total words: 11,144.

I am not a survivor of sexual assault.

And the words Me too are powerful beyond their application to any particular group.

See, most of us grow up knowing–knowing–that we’re supposed to have the answers. And if we don’t have the answers, we’re supposed to pretend we do. Because that’s how we lead. Because if they feel like we know what’s going on, if they feel like we know what to do, the people who depend on us will feel better. They’ll see we’re not afraid, not uncertain, and that’ll help them call up their own courage and carry on with us.

It’s true, particularly when the answers are knowable, or when we know they’ll reveal themselves with liberal application of confidence and elbow grease. Because we can fake confidence, and we all have plenty of elbow grease when we need it, and most of the time it feels better to stay busy, anyway. And if you work long enough and hard enough, you might fix what’s wrong, even if it’s by accident.

But sometimes, fake confidence and elbow grease aren’t the way to go. Sometimes, the people who depend on you are are scared, and you’re scared too, and nothing you can do will make it better.

Sometimes, all you can do is sit down next to them and say me too.

I’m scared too.
I’m sad too.
I’m confused too.

And I don’t know what to do about it, and I can’t fix it. But you’re not alone, and we’re going to figure out together how to move forward.

Right now feels like one of those times. Too many people know exactly what to do, exactly how to move forward, and they want us to shout damn the torpedoes and reopen everything so the economy doesn’t collapse, or they want us to shout victory or death and keep everything closed until we know we’ve gotten ahead of the curve.

And the rest of us are holding our breath, thinking we’re in the middle of something the world hasn’t seen in a hundred years, and wondering how anybody could possibly claim to know exactly how to move forward in the face of a virus nobody had ever seen until seven months ago.

We’re scared, and not just over whether we or our loved ones will get sick. We’re scared of what the world will look like in six months, of what kind of world we’ll have when COVID-19 is a memory. We’re scared we won’t have a vaccine in eighteen months, or it will only be available for those who can pay thousands of dollars for it. We’re scared that our kids will grow up in a world without handshakes or hugs. And we don’t know how to stop those things.

And a lifetime of training tells us we have to stand up straight and pretend to be confident and act like we know what to do. And our instincts tell us we’re full of bullshit.

Maybe this is a time to follow our instincts. Maybe we need to sit together, masked and gloved and at a proper social distance, and say me too. You’re not alone.

And then we can figure out together how to move forward.