Day 21 of 30: All the Colors

A prompt on holding space for everything

This is not the prompt we planned to run today, but it’s the prompt that feels right for this moment. You may be watching the news and feeling relief about the conviction of Derek Chauvin, or still grieving the loss of a loved one to covid, or stepping outside and rejoicing at the world springing into bloom. You might be doing all of those things. You might be feeling the range of the emotional palette, which can be overwhelming. And as today’s prompt says, it’s also okay.

Sending love,

Suleika

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All the Colors by Suleika Jaouad

Truth be told, I didn’t finish my first 100-day project. By the time we reached the end, I was very, very sick. The standard treatment I’d been prescribed had failed, and I was undergoing a brutal experimental regimen and being hospitalized about every two weeks. I was actually too sick to feel disappointment. Instead, what I felt was a more general sense of despair—that every effort I made to be productive, every plan I had for moving forward had been interrupted. The ongoingness of it was so defeating. It was as if I had lost sight of the horizon, and I couldn’t will myself forward.

About a year later, I found myself at another Day 100: having made it through that many days post-transplant. It’s an important milestone, one that determines the success of your transplant and by extension your likelihood of long term survival. To celebrate, there was a rooftop party organized by my friends—lively 24-year-olds in the prime of life, who were drinking, dancing and laughing. But what very few of them knew was that, only a few weeks earlier, my doctors told me I had a high risk of relapse and were recommending another year of chemo. I spent the party profoundly disoriented. I was surrounded by the people I loved, all celebrating me—yet I was devastated by the thought of ongoing treatment, and I felt so alone. I could barely wrap my head around the contradictions.

I look back on those times and I see depths I couldn’t then. I see that my first 100-day project was not a failure—in fact, the writing I did became the foundation upon which I built my New York Times column. I see that my experience at the Day 100 party was an early rite of passage, teaching me about contradictions and uncertainty, and how that’s part of this experience of being human.

Day 100 for me has come to symbolize so much. The first project. The post-transplant milestone. The culmination of my road trip, when I returned to New York City after traversing 15,000 miles around the United States. Reaching this Day 100 together feels triumphant, and it also contains the complex truth that we rarely get to move on from the hard things. As much as we wish we could leave them behind, could find some separation, they’re a part of us, and we have to move forward with them. 

Yesterday I was on a call with the Isolation Journals team, and as we reflected on what we were feeling about our lives and the world at large, that’s what kept coming up—the contradictions and the uncertainties. Lindsay said she felt like we just realized we’re all running a marathon and are only at mile eight. Carmen said she felt directionless and untethered. Kate said she felt a number of conflicting emotions, and that she thinks of it as experiencing “all the colors”—from fury to peace, from exhaustion to exuberance. “Maybe one day, I’ll have the luxury of experiencing and focusing on only one,” she said, “but right now, I’m a Jackson Pollock, splattered with every color and hue. And that’s just how it is. And that’s okay.”

Your prompt for this week:
Reflect on all the colors that make up your emotional palette—from the brightest neons to the drabbest grays. Examine the different hues and shades that occur each morning, midday, afternoon and evening. Write about how they’re playing out on a canvas, how they work together to make each day a painting of its own.