August 25, 2021

*Hi there. I’ve taken a little pivot from my usual (but who can really call a blog I used to regularly write in two years ago ‘usual’) writing. This is really just for me now. I am trying to find my voice. To write regularly, and rawly (is that a word?) and to put it in a place where my mom (hi mom) and my sister (hi Amy) and maybe a few friends can see it. To hopefully be able to look back years from now and see how much I’ve grown as a person and a writer. I will not be tip-toeing around issues anymore or choose my words carefully because I think it has restricted me in the past. If you signed up for notifications years ago for this blog and were just alerted then, buckle up, cuz, well, sometimes it’s just real boring and sometimes I talk about Trump and how our city school system is real f-ed up. Welcome. *

It’s August 25, 2021. I was just looking up today on delta.com the amount of credit we have from a trip to NY we were supposed to take 18 months ago. 18 months ago. 18 months ago we had to cancel a trip to NY because coronavirus was killing people in New York City and they were running out of room in the morgues and putting people in refrigerated semi trucks. They were putting dead people in refrigerated trucks!

And last year, last Spring, we stayed home and we didn’t see our families and we didn’t go to work or church or the barely even the grocery store, unless we heard there might be a new shipment of toilet paper. 

Now here we are. Here I am. So many long months later and it’s worse it’s so much worse. It’s what we thought was happening last year. But now we have a vaccine and people won’t take it because of the internet and fake news and because of “freedom.” And probably a little bit because of Donald Trump. And people are dying. Our hospitals are full again. This weekend, the city of Tallahassee ran out of oxygen completely. Orlando apparently uses oxygen to sanitize their water and they had to stop doing that. 

Because of this virus. Because people won’t get the vaccine. Over and over I see hospital graphics about the number of people hospitalized with COVID that are vaccinated vs unvaccinated. 

122 in patients being treated for covid, 10 vaccinated.

28 in patients being treated for COVID, 4 vaccinated. 

10 deaths from COVID. All unvaccinated. 

And on and on and on and on.

I saw something the other day that said that we weren’t meant to carry all this weight,  we are not God. Well what are we supposed to do? People are dying, the physicians are exhausted, begging people to get the shot, Afghanistan has fallen to the Taliban and did you see that a 14 month old died of COVID just two weeks ago? 

We weren’t meant to carry it all yet we are. Somewhere, it’s in there somewhere, right?

People are scared. My throat is sore, should I go get a COVID test? Mabry was exposed, and woke up with a runny nose. I got her a rapid test and it was negative, but should I have done a PCR? I sent her to school. Am I being responsible enough?

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There is so much to say, but how will I ever quiet my brain down enough to say it? There is so much I have to say.

There are stories in me about death and accidents and grief so deep you cannot see the bottom. About friendship, about the rarity that is the depth of decades-long friendship. They are my stories and I don’t know how to get them out of me. I want someone to tell me what to do. Please someone lay out a plan for me.

My friend Katie says, “you should be putting at least one body of work out into the world each week,” and I say, “yes, I know,” but how do I do it? 

Where do I start? I am sitting in the kitchen and the dishwasher’s green light is screaming at me. The dishwasher is screaming at me to empty it. Who knew dishwashers could be so f-ing loud?

I am so busy. I am so busy perfecting my bicep curl and my parenting techniques. I am so busy cooking cow tongue and vacuuming the carpet. I cannot sit down and read even though I know it will make me want to write. 

The laundry is screaming at me. Screaming! Why is the laundry so loud?

I have to read other people’s stories.

I have to take out the laundry’s vocal chords. 

No one is going to tell me what to do. 

I just have to do it.