Brian couldn’t sleep.
He lay awake in bed, doing his best to ignore the episode of “Friends” airing on television, hoping to fall asleep. He was sure his daughter would make her way into the bedroom at any moment and climb into the bed, which meant he’d have to choose between staying in bed and getting assaulted all night by his toddler or move to the couch to give his daughter and his wife more space.1 His thoughts had slowed somewhat but he recognized the familiar weight that they still seemed to hold.
The day had been full of contradictions and confusion, an odd mix of positivity and borderline despair, as many days had been recently.
Brian’s walk to the subway that morning after dropping off his children at their respective schools had been quick. His son had alternated between running ahead and walking next to him as they took the usual route to his school. They engaged in conversation about the recycling machines outside the supermarket and the brand new leggings his son was wearing as part of his newfound “athletic style” fashion preferences. Then, his daughter went into her classroom without any coaxing, contrary to the last two days when she’d been uncharacteristically upset and needed to be pried out of her father’s arms. The subway trip was uneventful and he arrived at work fairly quickly.
Brian was met at the office by the familiar air of fatigue and resignation that he had left the night before. The dry heat of the old building seemed to weigh down the morale that had already been hanging low over the cubicles. Even opening the window and turning on his desk fan were only marginally effective in cooling the atmosphere. The transition his office had been going through during the last year and a half had escalated over the last few months, which had left Brian and his colleagues doing their best to adjust to new responsibilities, new paperwork and new expectations. Their efforts to find their footing under the new regime seemed to leave little room for keeping positive attitudes in mind.
Still, Brian had found himself smiling as he walked in. He knew what needed to be done that morning and had finally started feeling like the ground was firming up underneath him. Well, this is clearly the best use of my time and my masters degree, he had thought as he spent two hours scanning and uploading the various forms to comply with the new guidelines. But despite his frustration with changing administrations and his disappointment in the apparent lack of understanding from state officials about how his job actually worked, he had felt pleased with the accomplishment of completing the assignment.
His mood had faltered somewhat, though, as he ventured onto social media for a few minutes as he ate his lunch at his desk. It might have been the slew of comments about the crimes of political officials, the bombardment of think pieces about the oppressive treatment that so many people in the country experience or the fact that a friend of his only had one attendee to a program that should have filled an auditorium. It might also have just been this tweet:
This utter inhumanity is happening Now
El Paso, TX: Hundreds of migrant families are being held in the parking lot of a Border Patrol station because there is no room left inside, or elsewhere
Caged, sectioned off, & concentrated in make shift camps😳pic.twitter.com/80y0YcoGBL
— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@QasimRashid) March 28, 2019
It had all been enough to make Brian think that his friend might have been right about burying his head in the sand. It might have been better to ignore the turmoil around him and just focus on the cute animal photos, Major League Baseball’s Opening Day and jokes about parenting. But how could he just ignore the terrible things happening in the world? And, even if he worked to combat them, how much control could he really exert, considering the fact that he was essentially chained to his desk chair, trying to finish off his work before the April changes became official?
Brian’s eyesight began to blur as he gazed upward at the blank ceiling. He blinked to reset his vision but the uncertainty remained. He thought for a minute about his friend’s post and about how it had reminded him of the Rabbinic teaching, “Lo alecha ham’lacha ligmor; v’lo atah ben chorin lehivatel mimenah – you are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to avoid it.” Brian knew that he was helping with tikkun olam, fixing the world’s problems, through his social work career, his religious school teaching position and even his writing. But it was still difficult to maintain the feeling that he was actually making a measurable difference in people’s lives.
Brian fished his phone out from underneath his pillow and glanced at the time. He opened the app to add a comment to his friend’s post, as though doing so might quiet the ongoing doubts he was experiencing. But, just as he began typing, he heard a whimper come through the baby monitor on his nightstand. As expected, his daughter had woken up.
Continuing the work and fixing the world would have to wait until tomorrow.
1. Either way he’d end up sleeping on… well, you know.↩
