I know too much about ballistic missiles for someone who studied social work

I have accidentally become conversant in at least seven subjects that I wish I knew nothing about.

I miss the days when I had no opinion about uranium enrichment.

Or how long it takes a missile to get to Israel from Yemen or Iran.

I wish I could erase my entire COVID epidemiology vocabulary from my brain.

My military strategy knowledge could have been better used for recipes.

I think we all have degrees in fields we never applied for and I’m tired of accidentally majoring in catastrophe.

I would rather focus on an elective like pottery.

Or jazz dance.

I wish I could say, “I don’t know,” and blissfully putter around in a garden.

Read for hours in a sunny nook.

Leave my phone in another room.

The human brain was not built to absorb this much reality.

We filter wars and pandemics and elections and atrocities and breaking news through our nervous systems all day long, and then wonder why everyone is exhausted.

We’re expected to have opinions on things we have no business pretending to understand.

Surely my nervous system has no business having firsthand knowledge of this many historic events.

I’d rather be floating down a river with the sun low in the sky.

Or sitting with a steaming cup of tea – punchy hibiscus, soothing peppermint, sharp lemon.

I’d like a landline so my sister can call me.

I’d like to write letters by hand and have to wait for an answer.

I’d like to be unreachable for a little while.

Not ignorant.

Just blissfully unavailable.

But when knowing what’s happening in the world is part of keeping yourself and your family safe, ignorance isn’t really an option.

Anyway, if you need me, I’ll be studying the geopolitical implications of whatever happens tomorrow.

Against my will.