I took my grandma out for tea and a scone on a cold, snowy day. We sat in the corner of a bakery and just giggled while watching each other eat. My grandma is ninety-two, has a broken hip and a torn rotator cuff, but she loves carbs and sugar, always will. When I was little we used to bake (*burn) cookies on the weekends. We made dozens upon dozens of charred, crispy cookies. Grandma was the one person when I was little that let me eat raw cookie dough. So naturally, the turn-out of the cookies didn’t bother me. I loved being with my grandma, in the burnt chocolate kitchen air.

There’s a phrase going around in our generation that has grown to be quite bothersome to me: “You do you”. I think the initial intention of this phrase has a healthy foundation, an edited version of “take care of yourself.” Which truly is a beautiful thought. This world now has nearly eight billion people occupying it’s space, breathing it’s air, eating it’s food. And we are “doing us”? This is where it gets messy for me. Humans were made for community, for connection, for intimacy, being selfish isn’t an option. Taking care of yourself is not selfish. Noticing is not selfish. Being intentional with oneself in order to be intentional with others is not selfish. Making your own decisions is not selfish. Choosing something that decreases another’s value is selfish.

I was on a boat in Charleston with one of my good friends during the fiasco of the Coronavirus pandemic. We were eating chips and salsa and listening to Tow’rs, being still in the rocking of the boat. We were talking about how amazing humans are. The kindness of humanity is so strong. She looks at me all sensitive and teary-eyed and says “I think this is a test of humanity, and if it is, we are fucking passing it.” My heart is swollen in the best way possible.