What's the takeaway?

Hello and welcome to your Sunday email. The one where we talk about last week! On Thursday, during my weekly therapy session, a perfectly comical thing happened: After spending 59 minutes dissecting the buffet of trials and tribulations I'd offered up, my therapist began to deliver her final assessment, which she always does by starting with the phrase: "I think the task is…" followed by some kind of insight that I do my best to apply to whatever happens after I leave her office. Because the session was occurring over video chat, and I'm staying at a house upstate with lights that flicker when the wind changes direction, as soon as she arrived at the word "is…" the video froze. I was seized by a minor panic. Ma'am! The task! I need it! …It's quite expensive, actually! I looked at the clock: we were technically out of time. I imagine the static face she saw on her monitor was mostly wide, pleading eyes. Moments later, my phone rang. "I believe you were about to administer the task," I said as a greeting. We laughed and rushed off so she could start another session. Lessons, takeaways, tasks —whatever you want to call them—they're how we metabolize difficult experiences. They are also, I think, one of the only ways we can convince ourselves that the things that hurt us were, in a way, worth it. Right now, there isn't a single person on Earth who isn't in some kind of pain, the difference being a massive sliding scale with "acute" and "vague" on either end. And so we are all trying desperately to learn from what we're feeling. In unison, we're figuring out the secret to baking a perfect loaf of bread. Of working from home. Of not working at all. Of wanting less, gratefully. We are becoming masters of self-amusement, loneliness, and joy deferral. We're learning things we've always idly wondered about and other things we never expected we'd need to understand. On the site this week, we sifted through it—both the good, rewarding parts and the less savory aspects of the past few weeks. Amalie dove in head first, with an essay titled "Self-Isolation Has Turned Me Into My Best *And* Worst Self" which caused me to Slack her the message "Throat! Clenched!" I assume the headline speaks for itself (its best and worst self, that is). In the cautiously optimistic department, Edith, who is preparing for a future in which she does not share a kitchen with her parental unit, began assembling a list of things she might put in her apartment once she's able to safely move into one. (The list: It's so good. I think I now want Edith to have her own place more than Edith wants her own place.) Leandra continued her weekly dispatch evaluating quarantine, and this week, she turned her lens ever-inward, and investigated her reasons for feeling compelled to record a dispatch at all. (Thankfully, she's decided to continue covering this beat next week. Come see us tomorrow?) Harling, Man Repeller HQ's most coveted Sweetgreen-run companion, put in the work to figure out how to make a really good salad herself. I wrote about a podcast that's helping me to see things differently, listen more closely, and overall, to be more present during the brief windows when I step out for fresh air. What will come of all the things we've learned in isolation? And how will we fit it all on our resumes? We have plenty of time to figure that one out, thankfully. Thanks for opening this email. See you next Sunday. 🙂 –Mallory You are receiving this email because you signed up to receive newsletters from ManRepeller.com Man Repeller editors endorse products we genuinely love. If you end up buying something through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more here. Update Profile | Unsubscribe | Forward Man Repeller LLC 632 Broadway #602 New York, NY 10012 Add us to your address book