I took a summer hiatus from writing because after we lost Princess, I wasn't sure I had anything left i me to say.
And here I am. Staring at the Handmaids Tale in Texas that's headed to roughly 15 other states in the next year. My close friends in New Orleans have fled for Marietta GA with their 11 year old because who knows when they'll have power restored. Philly and Hoboken are underwater. Niblet is back at school, masked and vaxxed and waiting to be quarantined anyway because it's inevitable.
We are saying good bye to our Nanny today - she's moving on to a new family, Samantha will move on to full day nursery school. C will always be in our lives, but it will surely be a massive upheaval for Samantha. With this, my childcare expenses will be cut by roughly 3/4, I will eventually pull myself out of the massive credit sinkhole I am in. I am not one of the millions of USians about to be evicted. Our 107 year old house is still standing. We live on a hill overseeing the tributary that will surely wash away the cars below one day.
Some of my closest family members have been propagandized to believe that masks are signs of an impending crush of freedoms and that critical race theory is teaching my white daughter in a predominately black public school to hate herself. If I don't numb myself to what we are facing I can't function.
It is with this last sentence that I pour out the following: the ONLY thing tethering me to sanity, to the ability to get up every day, are my daughters. They are the buoy that is saving me from downing in my rage and tears. I hate the burden that I am placing on them, they don't deserve it. No child does. But here we are.
