Visual storytelling by Desiree Llanos Dess and Nityalila Saulo of TofuCreatives.com
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sitting would be it. Sit on your couch and devour episode after episode of Culinary Class Wars even if the idea of one more tofu dish makes you queasy. Sit through hours and hours of traffic because there is unfortunately no other way to get to your destination.
But don't sit for too long; this causes lower back pain and a stiff neck, and your body does not recover the way it used to when you were younger. Sitting is the "new smoking," after all. Your fitness tracker will send a jolt through your wrist, notifying you to stand every hour. (Well, until you finally turn off those reminders.)
Sit up straight. Photos of you reveal the hunchback that you are. Pilates may help but cannot fix your posture forever.
Four days before your dog dies, you sit on a plastic chair in the vet clinic, filling up a form under fluorescent lights. Beside the blank line that says "owner," you write your name. You think about how the label is a disservice to your relationship, because any pet "owner" would agree that pets own us too.
You sit beside your bestest fur friend as she takes her last breath with your hand on her back. Though you know that their lives are shorter than yours, her death unspools a ribbon of grief that tangles your days. The absence of the daily devotions ache the most: the warmth by your feet when you send emails; the frantic run to the door when you arrive whether you're gone for five minutes or three weeks; and the tufts of fur dotting your black leggings.
You are a person who naturally loves out loud, but you have never known how to grieve out loud. You sit with your feelings mostly in solitude, struggling to tow your heart away from sadness.
One evening in late March, you and your friends are sitting around a dining table with a platter of spaghetti and a cake even if it is no one's birthday. (Friendship is worth a celebration.) You are a collective of losses, filling empty parts of yourselves with memories of pets, friends, lovers, siblings, grandparents, fathers, and mothers. Some endings are marked by deaths and breakups, but you can also lose people who are still alive and occupy the same worlds. The pain softens but never disappears; grief continues to hum like an undercurrent, a constant reminder of love that isn't sure where to go.
Friendship grows through the accrual of the big and small. It could be taking the seat beside you while you cry over your dead dog with a box of egg tarts. Sometimes, sitting together is enough–no advice dispensed or no solutions offered. It’s in planning trips that finally make it out of the group chat. It’s in walking from one store to another, swatching similar shades of blush and spritzing fragrances on each others' wrists and sending check-in messages then taking weeks to reply.
Love is different from romance. If you're lucky and you work on it, you can have both.
Having a seat at the table means you're able to pull up a chair for others. Pull up a chair for those who deserve it.
Work is now less about the hustle and more about the heart. It's the right time to take a back seat so you can focus on scaling deep instead of scaling wide, on nurturing communities and relationships, and measuring impact with a generous heaping of humility and honesty.
Avoid making decisions out of desperation or excitement. Sit on it, wait for contracts, and read the fine print. Take your chance and negotiate. The higher your hopes, the bigger your disappointment. You choose to hope anyway. Hope is your form of self-preservation. Action is your idea of self-care.
On days when you feel stuck and uninspired, have a conversation with one of your prized consultants (a.k.a. ChatGPT). On other days, sit in silence and give space for ideas to breathe.
Family is often visualized as a tree. Its branches provide shade and comfort and its roots keep you grounded. Just keep in mind that trees can be felled and apples can fall far, far away from the tree.
Let nature astonish you. There is no need to take a photo of every sunset, every school of fish that sweeps you in its center, and every wildlife encounter. Sit still and watch. Admire the sunlight spilling in between leaves. Social media can wait.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy Wicked on the big screen with a tub of white cheddar popcorn. When the Ozdust Ballroom scene begins, your fragility blooms. By "Defying Gravity" and "ahhh--AHHHHH--ahhh---AaaaAAAAaaaHHH," you are sitting on the edge of your seat, clutching balls of tissue soaked with tears and white cheddar powder.
After many months, you find yourself with a puppy perched on your lap. He pees on your gleaming tiles, lunges at other dogs, and gnaws at your new ballet flats. It is a bold decision, knowing that how it ends will rip you apart again someday.
But someday is not now. For now, you sit and wait and continue to grieve and love.
And trust me on the sitting.
Original post inspired by "everybody's free to wear sunscreen."
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