Something Else

 “Let’s talk about something else,” we all agreed. “No covid, no politics, nothing miserable.”

We sat in silence, desperately trying to think about something to talk about. We started to talk about a film we’d seen on Netflix: Bombshell. It brought us back to politics, Trump and coronavirus.

“That didn’t work. Let’s try again.”

The silence became awkward. 

“Everyone says the David Attenborough documentary is a must watch.”

“I don’t think I can. It’s too depressing, what with everything else that’s going on.”

And we were back again.

My daughter started to talk about the queue for the doctor’s surgery, the Long Suffering Husband talked about the piece he’d seen on Breakfast TV about a sweet couple, married for sixty years who had never spent a day apart. We relaxed a bit. That was a nice thing. Except that since the pandemic they hadn’t been able to see each other because she was in a care home. He was upset that the care staff had been able to go home to their families, go shopping, even have parties if they wanted but he saw no one.

We took a breath.

“This is impossible. How can you stay positive when it’s all you can think about?”

This morning’s yoga workout, chosen for me by the YouTube algorithm, was one to combat stress. When she said, “When the thoughts come up, and they will, just acknowledge them and go back to the breath,” I suddenly realised that that’s all we can ever do.

As tempting as it is to try to find something else to think about, or talk about, our thoughts will always return to whatever is stressing us. It’s our brain’s job to try to make sense of things. Right now, that’s an impossible task. We are living through interesting times and so breathing is the only option.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Inspire. Expire.

Oh no. We’re thinking about it again.

When I was in a stressful situation before I decided that breathing wasn’t enough and that’s when I took up walking and looking at small things. It helped. One foot in front of the other, breathe, notice things that aren’t the big stuff. Have Pockets full of conkers. I love conkers. They are so smooth and brown and shiny. You can put them in your pocket and give them a rub when you feel stressed. When you take it out of your pocket and think, “Oh, it looks like Donald Trump,” then you just pop it back and breathe.

I’m not sure why I’m giving this advice. The stress still got on top of me. An elephant still landed on my head and turned me into Lady Macbeth. Also, you might be better at ‘other things’ than me. You might be able to have conversations about other things without ending back where you started but if you can’t then let’s breathe together and hope we don’t start a Tsunami