Before I got married, I’d never said “I love you” to someone who didn’t choose me.
And for years into mine and Jeremy’s marriage, the words didn’t tumble out organically when speaking to my in-laws.
Let me be clear. I always liked my in-laws a lot. And in some ways, I had the privilege of choosing them where they really only had the option to accept me.
I’m not a victim of gun violence any more or less than we all are.
Maybe it’s not the moment to slip into my itty bitty box.
If you read my last post, you know that I’m currently grappling with the intellectual quandary of my own voice. It’s not that I don’t have things to say; it’s just that there are so many of me saying the same thing, and how valuable is that? Or how valuable is one voice with imperfect knowledge? How valuable is one with a spotted record?
This wasn’t supposed to be some artsy photoshoot. It actually lacked any intentionality. I don’t even know what a lip mask is for, really—it just came in my FabFitFun box, and I put it on obediently so that, you know, beauty could happen.
It is coincidental at best that I am wearing a lip mask that presents me from speaking while I have been shaking out my bedsheets, trying to find where my voice is hiding. I’ve been thumbing through the pages of literature, like Peter Pan looking for his shadow. Scrolling online to see if my voice is lurking on a like button.
It isn’t.
This morning, as soon as our nanny arrived to take Hudson, I made my Friday march down to my basement office, wadded up a hoodie for a pillow, and decided to sleep on the floor.x No, I wasn’t booting up my computer and reviewing my incoming emails, but I felt like, through the absence of actual work, my proximity to work might be enough. Maeby, who is unaccustomed to me being quite so literally on her level, responded gamely—gamely in the sense that she flopped right beside me so her whiskers could twitch against my cheeks while we both tried to rest.
I have a time sensitive window in which to see a shooting star.
And the time constraint is: how long does it take for my melatonin to kick in.
I’m wrapped in an old rescued creature comfort—the M&M blanket I stole from my sister, with bare feet on November pavement, and I’m looking up through the clouds in vain hope.
I only slept because I took a melatonin supplement. But when I wasn’t sleeping, I was thinking about Pennsylvania. And polling. And uncertainty. And protest.
But, I woke up this morning, too early, with a book of bad poetry next to my bed, with the most beautiful sympathy card ever written:
On the night of my miscarriage, I made dinner from Hello Fresh, and Jeremy moved a stack of 159 bricks into the garage. I took solace in the measured portions, the controlled steps, and the predictable outcome. Jeremy liked the neat stacking.
Still, I burnt the dinner.
Hudson woke up with a 104 degree fever this morning. It doesn’t need a metaphor, it is what it is. Hot, unblemished baby skin.
But for me, every degree above 98 felt like a degree above boiling point. I was boiling water, splashing through the lid of a pot and landing with a sizzle-crash onto the stove.
I just watched my husband lift his dying father up the stairs.
It wasn’t a moment I planned for in life. Or maybe I planned for it at age 51 instead of 31, but I don’t think so. Fathers die only in abstraction. They aren’t supposed to die for real.
I haven’t planned for this moment, but whether any of us likes it or not, the moment is here.