I am finally feeling all the things.

And they are hard.

I am finally feeling the weight push down on me while the tears well up within me.

I am feeling the worry of families wondering about when they will be able to work again, or if they are working, how long they can stay healthy. I am feeling the sadness of lost graduations, postponed weddings and funerals, missing my students.

I am feeling the stress of all the things that still have to get done while I struggle to focus, caught between the demands of all the identities I hold so dear which are crashing into one another at each moment, demanding my attention and my time: mother, scholar, Asian American, teacher, friend.

I am finally feeling all the things.

I am finally feeling all the things.

And some of them are restoring light.

I am feeling the love in the regular texts from family and friends to check-in.  The e-mails, calls, texts, and tweets from my students. The joy of singing with my daughter as part of her home preschool “music” time.  The love of community willing to share what they have with others who have less.

I am feeling the resilient and resistant joy of being in #ClubQuarantine with 100K plus others. The peace of being alone at the end of a day where something got done.  The grace of taking a breath and of others’ embracing me in spite of (or because of) my humanity.

I am feeling the acceptance of acknowledging what I can and can’t control, making the next best choice in any given moment.  I am feeling the possibility of new connection.

I am finally feeling all the things.

They are existing together.  All the things, that reduce me to tears of sorrow and laughter.  That shift from moment to moment.  That remind me I’m alive.  For today. For this moment. Because that is all I have promised.