Today is Day 1 of my being sole and primary breadwinner—for the first time in my married life.

I gave Marco the home office this morning and headed off to COSI to do my work.  And boy oh boy is there company here.  Is everyone on the Upper West Side a freelancer, or looking for work, today or what?  The guy across from me is biting his bottom lip and reading the Wall Street Journal. A casualty of Lehman Brothers?  Maybe I’m just making myself feel better, but heck if Misery doesn’t love her some company right now.

Except that I’m not feeling so miserable.  The news is still fresh, and Marco is still processing in many ways.  But for the most part we are taking refuge in a shared bunker mentality and making the best of things.  Last night we ate cookies for dinner and watched a marathon 4 hours of 24.

Apparently, we’re not alone in feeling good–or at least, ok–amidst the bad.  I read with interest this article about resilience in yesterday’s NYTimes, titled “Down and Out–or Up,” which was accompanied by the image in this post.  My favorite bit was this:

“[T]he depth of this economic collapse has unceremoniously stripped thousands of far more than money: reputations have reversed; friendships have turned sour; families have fractured. Yet experts say that the recent spate of suicides, while undeniably sad, amounts to no more than anecdotal, personal tragedy. The vast majority of people can and sometimes do weather stinging humiliation and loss without suffering any psychological wounds, and they do it by drawing on resources which they barely know they have.”

And to be honest, that’s kind of how it feels.  I’m discovering resources I didn’t know were in me.  Marco’s got resources too, and we’re both keeping focused on what’s most important.  “All I have to do is look at Tula’s face,” Marco said to me at one point this weekend when we were both marveling at how not-yet-panicked we felt.  Tula, being our 5 month old crazy kitten.

It’s our mantra this week: Tula’s face.