I recorded a video that’s a tour of my emotional first aid kit. Or Ming recorded it. Please view this video, if you get the chance. Hopefully you can be inspired to make an emotional first aid kit for yourself or someone you love.
I emailed out the link to my peeps, yesterday, and posted it on facebook. Few people responded, so I was feeling worried all of a sudden, like maybe my emotional first aid kit was stupid, nobody cared, or the idea was too simple and obvious.
I asked Ming if the video was ok. We were driving home from Beatty, almost home.
He told me it’s a really important idea and launched into a brief impassioned speech about some beliefs we share. That I make it seem simple, but it’s a meaningful thing to talk about. He said he likes how I explain the objects. That people need to recognize how emotions are central, and there are a lot of ways we can care for them. It’s vital that we can help ourselves and one another, not leave it up to failed experts.
He said such nice things to me, understanding my project, I almost cried.
I was like, “Oh, so it’s good.”
“Yeah, it’s good,” he said.
He actually hasn’t seen it–he saw it only as he recorded it.
nurse
Today he’s going to nurse volunteer at a vax place, for the first time. So we’re feeling how that feels. It’s a big deal, that he will go to work, as he is disabled–it’s not work for pay, but it’s kind of intense, still. A shorter shift and hopefully less responsibility, but he hasn’t used his nursing license in many years. He hasn’t “gone to work,” the whole time we’ve been together.
So I asked him, are you going to be cranky, when you come home? Will you need certain things? Will you be stressed out? Do we need to get a dog, so you can beat me, and I can beat the dog? Are we going to enact husband coming home from work cliches?
We talked about expectations. Excitement vs nervousness vs stress. He will shed his clothes at the door, take a shower, do laundry. We’ll talk about how it was. He will call me, after his shift, from the parking lot, before he heads home. I can polo people if I get lonely, and write an email to my bestie. There’s a lot I can do, like go for a walk, or make art. I will be ok.
brave
You will be ok too. Whatever your day includes, you will come out the other side, somehow. Hopefully stronger and good.
Wow, this lady Ruby Ibarra is freakin amazing. Maybe one day I could be so brave and spit rhymes so skillfully as her. That will be my prayer.
