Hi Everyone,
Apparently it’s Friday again. Apparently a week has gone by. Apparently over here we’ve been on lockdown for six weeks. It’s hard to tell, because time has become a flat circle.
Anyway! This week was remarkably fine. This morning, I wrote an article on leadership on LinkedIn, so if you’ve missed my long winded essays on entrepreneurship, go read it (and better yet, share it!) Otherwise, I’ve found it sort of astonishing how we’ve started to adjust to our new reality. (The New York Times had a fascinating article on human resilience, and it’s one of the most interesting things I read this week.) It no longer feels disorienting to wake up, eat breakfast, set up kids up on some (honestly pretty minimal) school work, and sit down in the corner of the living room to get to work. Filling out small business grant and loan applications has become part of my routine, along with endless wrangling of government bureaucracy. My kids are… as ok as can possibly be expected. After a little bit of schoolwork, they spend most of the day outside, playing in mud, pretending endlessly. It some ways it’s a really painful time for them. In other ways they might remember this as the best part of their childhood.
Beyond that, two amazing things happened this week. First, we got the PPP loan. CUE ALL THE CONFETTI. (We applied through Divvy, which I cannot recommend more highly. Almost everyone I know who got it applied through them. So if you—or someone you love—runs a small business and still needs PPP funding, I’d highly suggest getting in queue with them.) That loan will keep us going for the next four months, which gives us 16 amazing weeks of runway to build new things. Weirdly enough, I can’t wait.
And! On Saturday I turned 40. I was really worried about my 40th in quarantine, but the love the flowed in from around the country was truly amazing. I was supposed to have a Mrs. Maisel themed birthday party (hopefully one day), but instead my friend Victoria-Riza sent me this amazing surprise photo as me as Miriam (I mean, I am a Miriam, that’s my Hebrew Name). I teared up. I already feel the power of my 40’s, and I can’t wait to go get it.
All that to say, things remain impossibly hard. We’re still checkin in on my sister as she works as an ER doctor in a hotspot (she’s miraculously ok so far, even without enough PPE). My kids miss their friends. I miss hugs, and drinking with friends. Days roller coster from joyful to tears. But we’re adapting and surviving and that’s important.
How are you doing? We’re here for all of it, and the connection we can get.
And if APW means a lot to you, please consider joining us on Patreon. Every $3 helps us provide health care to our staff during these terrifying times.
XO
Meg
