By: Catherine Daleo
Reading time: 10-11 minutes

Lately, the world has felt like it is just been rushing by, and that time has simply melted away as we’re hurtled toward some unknown future. The ongoing joke between everyone this year has been how many years a single month has felt like, with a plethora of memes to accompany this trope.

At first for me, things were happening so fast, both at the beginning of the year and the beginning of the pandemic just 3 months after. I was floundering, and scared. The news was updating hour by hour, and things felt like they were getting increasingly crazier and more unstable. 

My brain got a bit caught up in the slippery slope mentality, even though I kept telling myself that slippery slopes were, more often than not, fallacious and perceived rather than real. That while I felt like we were standing on an icy cliff, staring down this massive free fall of a slope and were so close to going down it, it felt more like a mountain that has had a bunch of ups and downs (but mostly ups). 

I won’t deny that things have absolutely gotten worse on multiple regards over these past several months, but I acknowledge that things I feared would happen didn’t, while some things I feared did, such as the uprising we’ve been seeing for months. 

And while I still have some concern that some of the things I think will happen are still coming our way, I have come to terms that they will come if and when they come. 

Things are in many ways collapsing around us, but it so far has happened in a slow way, even though it feels fast (and it is happening fast, relatively). I thought by summer most if not all the states would have closed their borders. That we would be seeing MASSIVE food shortages, especially with all the news of the meatpackers getting sick, and the extreme weather that would undoubtedly threaten our food supply. 

So my expected timeline for everything was way off. With how quickly the news was updating with places locking down the city and skyrocketing COVID cases and deaths, it felt like a very rapid onset collapse. 

Now we find ourselves in September, roughly 6 or 7 months since things started spiraling. I’ve noticed that, for the most part, people seem to have moved past much of our initial emotions about everything. Instead, we’ve evolved them. 

People are perhaps less afraid to an extent at this point, but some have grown much angrier and malcontented, while others have developed an apathy for everything happening. Our attention has shifted from how the pandemic has impacted us, to how the powers that be have forsaken us during the pandemic. 

A list of grievances that were already prevalent in our country for decades, if not centuries, are coming to a head. 

Our healthcare system is a joke and in shambles. 

We have next to no safety nets for our people in general, so when an actual crisis hits, we have no stability. 

The working class is being completely exploited of their labor and gutted financially in perhaps one of the largest wealth transfers in recent history. 

Our leaders continue to reject science on multiple fronts, from the pandemic to climate change, as nearly 200 thousand people have died from the coronavirus, and as our country is ravaged by massive fires, record heat waves, and catastrophic storms. 

And, the deep-rooted issues of systemic racism and classism, both directly related to the corruption of both our criminal justice system and our government. 

It seems that nearly every issue our country has been dealing with from its conception, yet has ignored fundamentally, is all converging on top of us this year. 

The weight is crushing.

It doesn’t help that besides the weight of everything that’s happening, we all have our own weight to carry in our personal lives. Relationships. Family. Jobs. School. Our personal interests or projects. Everything. 

For some, it has been too much to bear. Suicide rates have skyrocketed this year, and they were already at epidemic levels in 2019. 

As someone who deals with depression and anxiety, the year has been a test of many things for me, as it has been for everyone. 

The year has had this overwhelming feeling of “sink or swim”. 

Which upon my reflection of the last few months has made me realize that things have felt more like a river than a mountain. A river that has taken us over many waterfalls, where rather than this slow uphill climb through everything, we’re just being constantly taken down a treacherous path and over some steep edge, dropping us down in freefall until we hit the next level where it seems we’ll start the cycle over again, with a destination unknown if there’s one at all. 

And at this point, I’ve lost count of the downs and plateaus. Because that’s what it’s ultimately felt like. When we talk about mountains, it’s usually either the discussion of the uphill climb or the ‘up’ being the good things that happen, depending on the context. 

No. This is much more a river – massive and uncontrollable. The current changes from slow and steady to fast and whirling depending on the terrain it crosses. Sometimes there are rocks to avoid, both big and small, and sometimes you can just lean back and let the current take you without much obstruction or maneuvering. The bank is off to the side, but it’s nearly impossible to swim over to it and have a moment to breathe without fighting the current. 

So that’s what I’ve been doing – letting the current take me. 

I spent so much time worrying in the beginning of the pandemic about what was happening or what was going to happen. All of these things outside my control. Sure I can speak up and out against things (and I definitely will continue to), but I learned that I cannot control anything outside of myself and my own actions or reactions. 

I can react and respond to the rocks that impede the course of the river by trying to move around them, but I can’t move them out of my way nor can I allow myself to collide into them.

Meeting the river head-on doesn’t mean going head-to-head with it. 

You’ll never win that battle. Rather, it means meeting the river on the river’s terms. Following its lead and keeping an eye out ahead to see what is coming and do my best to avoid obstacles. And when I come to a waterfall, I try to see it beforehand, hold on tightly and dive in before continuing on. 

It’s not a river that I chose to jump into.I expect that no one CHOSE to dive into this. 

The river instead came, flooded us out of our little bubbles, and swept us away altogether to some unknown destination. For some, the river carried them away long before the rest of us. And for some, they were born in the river and it never let them go. 

So, in a way, I’ve decided to just do my best to float and to navigate. To not fight the current, and instead see where it takes me. 

I am in my own boat, or raft if you will. And only I am in control of my raft. That is, I am the only one in control of my reactions to the waves and the current and all the obstacles that I face. 

And as I am carried down this proverbial river, I try to do my best to help others onto my boat if needed, or help them while they’re in their own boat if they need it. Some people have tied all their rafts together to try and form a solid platform to stay connected and afloat together. In a way, I am like a small rescue raft that comes and goes and tries to do what I can to help the whole, even if it’s just to pass things along or help someone onto the bigger raft before going back out to find others in need of help. 

The thing is that we’re all in the same river. The only things that are different are what we have to float on and how we navigate the waters.

Some people have nothing to float on. Some have a piece of driftwood. Some have a raft. Some might have a really NICE raft. And others, the relatively few, have actual boats. Even fewer people have something metaphorically akin to a yacht – high and dry, and out of the river watching people struggle and drown all around them. 

I imagine that the metaphor is really clear here. 

But for those who might be lost or confused, I’ll try to explain my meaning. 

Those few people with the big boats and the yachts? They’re anchored in a way, able to remain stable upon the river, perhaps even resist it for a while. They see everyone else passing by struggling to stay afloat, and yet refuse to throw out a life preserver or a rescue boat. They watch them float by and do nothing, all while knowing that many will perish in the river. 

The most they might do is throw a piece of food or something at someone, except the food is either bad or it gets soaked immediately. 

Or they might toss a scrubber to someone and tell them to clean the yacht as they pass by, and throw them spare change for the work, but it does nothing to help in actuality. 

In fact, it’s the people on the boats and the yachts that own everyone else’s rafts. Even the driftwood some are clinging to is essentially the property of those on the bigger boats, at least in their minds. And if it isn’t, they’re trying to find some way to own it and control it. 

Instead of helping people out of the water, they make it their own fault that they’re even stuck in the river in the first place. “Well maybe you should have thought about buying a boat before you got swept away!” they would say. Or, “You’ll never learn to swim if I give you something stable to stand on”. 

The people on the yachts might even try to control the river to an extent. They make extra waves to force the hands of those stuck in the water, and then try to sell them a solution or a distraction to their fate. 

But they fail to realize that nothing can ever truly own or control the river. And nothing can ever truly resist the river – not for long. 

They are in the same river as us. A river that has been flowing its course longer than any of us have been around. And while we’ve been concerned about our own place in the river, the river has become swollen, and it’s picked up some debris and mud along the way. And it’s converging all together on top of all of us, in a massive wave, full of 

While the current seems to have increasingly picked up over a short period of time, it’s also gathered an additional force upstream that is hurtling towards us that will undoubtedly sweep us all up, no matter what we have to float on.  

Because those on the yachts have gotten too comfortable and too far removed from those in the river. They don’t see the inevitable wave coming. A wave in which they directly contributed to by stirring up the waters around them, sweeping up more and more debris in the process. 

And as I work on floating down the river navigating it as best I can, there is nothing I can do to stop the wave coming from behind us. I can only look and move forward and hope to stay afloat, with or without my raft. 

It’s sink or swim. 

So many people feel like the speed at which we are being pushed along as we go through this year, we must be headed towards a wall that we will inevitably collide. 

Personally, I don’t see a wall. I see the ocean. What the river was leading us to all along. But before we can get there, we have to ride out the storm and stay afloat in the flood that’s coming for us – whatever that flood ends up being. 

By that I mean it won’t just be water. It will be rocks and trees and the people who have and will drown around us. Because you can only ignore what’s below the surface of the water for so long. And it doesn’t forget what it’s consumed in its path, even if we have. It all comes up at some point. 

Whatever is coming our way, and whatever is beneath us that we’ve ignored, it’s going to be tough. The toughest, most difficult, and terrifying thing any of us have faced. 

We’re already dealing with the beginnings of it now, as we head towards the next drop-off point that’s approaching us in the front, and as we start getting bumped and knocked around by what’s coming from behind. 

The best we can do right now, is hold on tight, keep our eyes ahead AND on each other, and let the river guide us. If we stick together on the path, the ride will be smoother. But we HAVE to help each other stay afloat. 

Knowing the way things are and the way of the river, not everyone will survive it. It’s an inevitability. But that doesn’t mean that we pretend nothing is wrong or that we should act as if this is business as usual. It never was. Business as usual has always ignored things that are severely affecting those around us. These issues don’t go away when they’re ignored. And if they’re ignored too long, they have a way of forcing our attention to them. 

I have never liked the idea of just letting people drown, in whatever version of drowning it refers to. People starving or living on the streets, out in the elements. People dying because they can’t afford health care. People’s entire lives being destroyed because of something out of their control. People being MADE to drown, if they can’t comply with the ruling class’s demands – work your entire waking life just to barely stay afloat while they sit on their yachts. 

The whole mentality of it “sucks to suck” when things are out of our control or orchestrated against us purposefully, and the idea of “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” when some people don’t even have boots, ignores our very human nature, which is to help one another when we are in need. 

We’re communal species. We NEED people to survive. Now, more than ever. 

And while the river will undoubtedly claim those in its path, we must be doing everything we can to pull those around us out of the river and weather the storm together so that we ALL survive it. Anyone lost is a detriment to our very nature of being. That is knowledge and experience that is gone. It’s history and stories that may never again be told. We don’t know what we have until we lose it, if we take it for granted. 

We should NEVER take people for granted. And we should stop telling people to sink or swim, when we can help them from drowning. 

If we can accomplish the act of pulling everyone out of the river and provide some level of stability, then we can weather any storm together – including this one. 

So fortify your rafts, strengthen your bonds, and give as many hand-ups as possible to those you pass by who are drowning. 

If we do this, we can reach the end of the river together, and reach the vast, limitless expanse of the ocean together in all its wonder and beauty. 

Perhaps then, we might be able to rest on the beach. And from there, some of us can start to really explore the depths of potential this ocean we approach has for us, while those on the beach rebuild and grow together, so we have something to come back to that is stable and supportive. 

I can see the beach on the horizon. So I know the river has a purpose in its carrying us away. For it’s the journey there that will determine whether or not we reach our destination together. 

Without each other, we will drown. Together we can float until we reach the beach and start anew. 

The river is a test that we must take together and help each other if we are to pass it. And the rewards will be abundant, while the consequences of failing will be devastating. 

What we do now will actively affect each of our lives and our futures. It affects our very survival as a society and as a species. 

It is up to EACH of us to say that it’s not a matter of sink or swim, it’s a matter of asking, “do you need a hand to help get out of the water?”

Don’t let other people drown. Help them to breathe. 

It all comes back to us in the end. 

When we reach our eventual destination, we will remember who drowned, who let them drown, and who tried to pull them out. 

Be a raft for those who need it, and move forward with the current.