Lately people keep telling me to just relax, which is good advice except that it's generally given at a time when relaxation is impossible, like yesterday afternoon, when I went to my optometrist's office for my every-six-months check to see how my cataracts are progressing and whether my glaucoma numbers are getting any worse, and I had to sit with my chin perched uncomfortably on a hard plastic frame while they first shot puffs of air into my eyeballs over and over again (because I kept blinking and wrecking the test) and then made me focus on a bright yellow light and push a button whenever another light flashed but I wrecked the test again because I couldn't keep staring at that yellow light without occasionally looking away and everything was going blurry and dark, and frankly, relaxation is the last thing on my mind when someone is messing with my eyeballs.
Just relax, they said. This will be over soon, they said, but all I can say is: not soon enough.
I've been told to just relax while trying to learn new technology to use in my classes this fall, even though the thought of trying to manipulate all this tech in front of a room full of students (or a Zoom full of students) just over a week from now fills me with dread, and I've also been asked repeatedly whether I'm willing to be a guinea pig to test new procedures before they get released on the full campus, most recently when I had to get a new college I.D. because I wrecked the old one (long story) and the I.D. is now essential for basic needs like getting into my building and making photocopies, so I said Fine, try out your new I.D. photo process on me, and I tried to just relax even though I hate getting my photo taken under any circumstances, and the result is a photo that makes me look squashed and desperately in need of a haircut, which is accurate but not reassuring.
I did get a haircut, finally, in June when the salons started opening up again, but then I was a captive audience for a stylist who couldn't stop spewing ignorant conspiracy theories that destroyed my ability to just relax, so I haven't been back for a trim since then even though my bangs are now longer than they've been in at least a decade. I don't want to be a guinea pig for anyone's loony theories, and I can't just relax when the person waving scissors within an inch of my face is clearly committed to the absolute destruction of the human race, so for the moment I'm letting my hair stay shaggy while wearing colorful masks to distract people from the mess.
I used to find haircuts relaxing, a guilt-free opportunity to sit quietly and do nothing, but now, like so many other ordinary events, haircuts are fraught with danger. I can't just relax in the stylist's chair or at the grocery store where shoppers demonstrate every possible misunderstanding of how masks work or on campus where I'm constantly banging my head against various new technologies or even in my bed when I'm sound asleep until some raging doubt about the syllabus alerts me at 4 a.m. and demands immediate attention. Squashed by anxieties and blinded by blurry eyes and shaggy bangs, I bumble my way through my days just hoping not to make too big a fool of myself. Under current conditions, that may be the best any of us can hope for.
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