Grieve the Fleas

Dec 15, 2023

Dear Friends,

I come downstairs, and my living room looks like it’s snowed. It’s not snow, of course. It’s just a mountain of discarded Kleenex viewed through the blur of pink eye vision. Happy holidays! We’re having a grand time.

In addition to pink eye and the runny nose inspiring my daughter to use and discard a tissue every three seconds, we’ve also been subject to a host of other symptoms, including coughs, upset stomachs, tantrums over eyedrops, and extreme disappointment.

Nora missed school. Jake missed work. I missed singing in my choir’s holiday concert, which feels especially unfair, as I have continued to work and parent as normal, canceling only the fun things I’d like to be doing.

Writer Dani Shapiro calls annoyances like this week’s illness “the fleas of life.”

“You know,” she writes, “colds, hangovers, bills, sprained ankles, and little nuisances of one sort or another. They are the constants of life, at the core of life, along with nice little delights that come along every now and then…It’s so easy to let them get in the way. Or to become so busy swatting at them that we get nothing else done.”

The fleas of life! Hand-foot-mouth, credit card compromise, car trouble, throwing out your back. A broken washing machine, food poisoning, weekend rain. Facebook hackers. Ants in the kitchen. Anything requiring a call to an insurance company.

The problem with the fleas of life is that if there are too many of them, or they linger too long, they can be demoralizing.

In our post-pandemic era (notice I did not say post-COVID era, as the stack of mysteriously-negative Binaxes on my bathroom countertop proves), I find that I’m especially reactive to things that shut down my plans and keep me in the house. My brain begins to panic, remembering all the long months indoors. My perspective disappears: this flea is now going to be forever.

Are they still fleas when the inconveniences of life move beyond nuisance and begin to isolate us? When you’re going back to the pharmacy for a third pink eye prescription?

Perhaps the flea is now a cockroach–something not just annoying, but worthy of a scream and a request for someone, anyone with a large shoe, to come and help.

Only no one is coming because, ew, you’re contagious.

Not only literally, but also superstitiously. Everyone knows a person who seems to have terrible luck–a new flea or cockroach every week. I always find myself pulling back–interacting less, skipping past social media updates–with this irrational fear that my life, too, will suddenly be overtaken by flight cancellations, lost luggage, and iPhone theft.

So how can we cope when there’s no one coming to crush (or even witness) the cockroach? And how do we manage our disappointment?

The first thing society wants us to do is manage our disappointment with grace, which is code for quietly. We don’t whine about it to our other friends who are having a nice time, thereby reminding them that FLEAS, TOO, CAN HAPPEN TO YOU. We don’t call our moms. We definitely don’t write about it on Substack.

We shove down those disappointed feelings. We put on a brave face. We withdraw into the cozy enclaves of our beds, only to reemerge when everything’s fine again. And then we apologize to everyone for being so unavailable!

Instead, I’m in favor of a good, loud wallow.

When I realized I was too sick to sing in my choir’s holiday concert, I tried something new and maybe a little un-graceful. I let myself grieve.

Sure, missing a concert isn’t life and death. But it was a source of small, but real grief. I love the holiday concert. I went to eight weeks of rehearsals only to miss the thing we were working towards. I missed out on the celebratory experience of the performance, when everyone’s focus is sharp, the crowd is excited, and we get to share music with the community. Naming these things as an actual loss is part of the grieving process.

Instead of singing, I spent Saturday night watching survivalist reality shows, eating ice cream I couldn’t taste, and going to bed early. (Perhaps more cliche grief responses, but effective ones all the same.)

Allowing myself to be truly disappointed somehow made things better. The grief didn’t sting as sharply the next day. I was able to then be gentler with myself. On Sunday, I honored my body’s need to rest. I lounged around and read a detective novel. I did not beat myself up over the fact that The Muppet Christmas Carol was parenting my (also sick) child.

When the fleas of life bite your ankles, I hope that you, too, will consider the less-graceful, more gentle-to-self route. Allow yourself to grieve the fleas. Though they are “just a part of life,” they’re also the things that can throw our mental health off track. Don’t minimize, especially in these days when we’re still processing the trauma of pandemic cancellations and extreme isolation.

And if you’re also in the midst of a flea infestation, I hope you, too, have the distinct privilege of wallowing in your pajamas, on the couch, with the dulcet tones of Kermit and Rizzo the Rat in the background.

Frog bless us, every one.

Take good care,

Dot

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