Privilege & Anxiety Clash, Then Make-Up, In My COVID Brain

Earlier this month I finally reconciled a conflict that challenged me since COVID really crashed our shores in early March. Basically that it’s ok to both feel fortunate that we’re staying-at-home together as a healthy family with more resources than the average American, while at the same time acknowledge and honor the anxiety the situation is causing me.

Wanting to get my daughter back to school where she is able to learn, develop and explore. Wanting to support the founders we backed as people (not just investments) who are challenged now not just by market forces but needing to knit a social and emotional infrastructure to help their teams. Wanting to sit next to my partner Satya at Homebrew HQ, not just Zoom from my dining room. Wanting to not hold my breath when someone walks by me, even if there’s six feet of separation.

For a few weeks any time those needs came into my head I shunted them aside, embarrassed that this was where my mind was going while people lost their jobs, suffered from a horrific virus, or any number of other more substantial dislocations than we’d encountered. So we gave to different charities (support FrontlineFoods) and checked in on those friends who had more difficult situations, because those were good legitimate things to do.

But I wasn’t sleeping well. One night I fought vampires. Then Thursday it was some weird scenario where I was left early from a friend’s wedding and then couldn’t get back into the venue when I felt…