This is probably not hard to believe, but I have had full-grown meltdowns over folding my laundry. I have pouted at the idea of having to make my bed. I have cried at the monotony of getting groceries, cooking the food, cleaning the dishes, all just to repeat the process over and over again. I have anguished over every 20-minute task that plagues my life, convinced that they will all pile up to break my spirit.
Every time I am in my head about how ungrateful I feel for whining about my insurmountable tasks I quickly scroll through social media. Amongst the friends, followers, foes, and algorithms lie meme after meme shared by all of my commiserating community suffering through the same impossible assignment of adulthood. These images have thousands of likes by individuals all trying to make sense of how we got stuck in this cycle. With each pic is the unspoken hurt felt by these modern inconveniences that compile into the collective trauma of being a grownup. Seeing a meme that speaks to my particular daily strife feels incredibly affirming, like I am not alone. Through the viral content of collective complaining we all get to remain anonymous in our struggle while pretending we are together.
In my life, I have categorically experienced capital T trauma. The kind of trauma you would see in a series on the Lifetime channel. I know the deep pain that comes with big, scary issues like death, assault, poverty, and addiction. As my life gets further from acute survival, it bewilders me when I feel flashes of that same capital T pain because I cannot get all my groceries into the house in one fell swoop. I am shocked by the feelings of self-doubt that consume me when I fail to put a fitted sheet on my bed accurately. The insecurity I undergo is akin to some of my worst experiences as I look at the clean laundry in the clothes basket for the fifth or sixth day in a row. The accumulation of these small never-ending tasks obscure larger issues within myself and make trying to tackle bigger problems within the world feel impossible. I struggle and fight to stay connected to others and community as I try to look past my own piles of clothes, dishes, or ever-escalating inboxes. My heart knows that I am not a failure if I do not complete all that is asked of me, but my brain has been conditioned to tie my worth to my productivity.
I have been told and have read a number of times we carry our trauma with us wherever we go and with everything we do. Once we grow up, the space and capacity to talk about trauma feels non-existent outside of deeply intimate relationships, and even then, who has the time? So, let’s imagine for one day that we completed all of the tasks. How about together we pretend that we have accomplished everything we have set out to do, that all chores are done, and we have succeeded in freeing up space. For one grand moment, we will celebrate finishing everything that was started before us and we will have the time to dream of something bigger than ourselves.
