Emily McCombs

My son is particularly anxious about death. He’s generally sensitive — he’s yet to make it through a full movie because anytime there’s a minor conflict he gets too upset and we have to turn it off. We left Zootopia in the theater when the big animals were being too “mean” to the rabbit. We left a screening of Toy Story in the park because he got too anxious when Woody and Buzz got left at the gas station. (We didn’t make it to the genuinely terrifying broken toy hybrids.)

I’m sure the Pokemon Go phenomenon will fade before long, but for the moment, it’s just dumb FUN that might even be good for you. The game cannot fix and should not distract us from the shit-fucking terrible goddamn week we’ve had in the world, but it can remind us that we all need to practice self-care, whatever package it comes in.

Sometimes I imagine what life would be like if I had lived back before glasses and contacts were invented and I couldn’t see anything and just had to fumble around blindly squinting at everything. Or before antidepressants, and I just had to spend my whole life crying in bed. Both those options still seem more manageable than living life without the ability to watch 6-10 episodes of a television show in one sitting.