For perhaps the 100th time in the past few years, yesterday I had to sit down with my children and have a hard conversation. They are 13 and 10 now, too old to avoid the major news. I remember trying to explain the earthquake, the pandemic, and the murders of George Floyd and Breanna Taylor and the epidemic of police violence. I remember trying to explain the Supreme Court, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the presidency of Donald Trump, and the anti-gay and anti-trans legislation happening in various states that might impact our family. Fucking global warming. But yesterday’s conversation was the hardest one of all.

Before the pandemic, gun violence seemed to be a weekly, almost daily trend. Stories of people killed by guns were so common that I formed a very special place of numbness within me in response. But even back then, three types of stories would break down my barriers and really affect me emotionally. 1. When large groups were attacked. (The Las Vegas concert shooting still haunts me. And the Pulse massacre… I can’t.) 2. When someone is attacked out of hate. (The stories of elderly black citizens killed in churches and grocery stores, every time a transgender woman is murdered, the stories of Asian-Americans being harmed on the streets…) 3. And the children. Especially the children. Anytime a child is attacked, I’m no longer rational. And there seem to be those out there who are determined to harm our kids because they know it will have the widest audience.

And so I had to tell me children the story. I knew they’d hear about it at school. How do I tell them just enough information to keep them informed while still leaving them feeling safe to go to school? (How do I absorb just enough information myself without feeling like I’m drowning in horrible details). They are supposed to feel safe always, but especially at home and at school. I can teach them not to run into the road or to talk to strangers, but how do I possibly warn them about this?

Two stories in two weeks. Two 18 year old boys posting online about their intended violence and then driving to a place with assault rifles that they legally purchased and barricading themselves in with a room full of vulnerable people and killing as many as they can. The thought of those kids sitting in there and studying math right after recess and snacks, their plans to be picked up by their parents right after school, their dreams about the coming summer vacation– a stranger walks into the room, blocks the door, and opens fire. I can’t. I can’t process it. I can’t.

And so I told my kids the basics. In a small school in a small town far away, a man went into the school with a gun and killed a lot of people. I told them I didn’t want them to have too much information because it is really sad, but told them they were probably going to hear kids talking about it. I reinforced they can share anything with me, and I asked how they were feeling and if there was anything they might want to talk about. They said they were sad but okay, and then went on with their days.

And that was the part that broke my heart. I gave them a piece of devastating news and they just absorbed it and walked away, no big deal. Either they have similarly taught themselves to go numb, or they can’t process the information, or they have already had so much bad news in their lives that this just feels inconsequential because it happened to people they don’t know and as long as it doesn’t happen to me, I don’t have to let it affect me. I don’t know which of those scenarios is the worst, but they all scare me.

Each generation seems to have the same problem in assuming that the world should be better than the way it was the generation before us. How is it we are still dealing with mass murders? How is it we are still dealing with the invasions of countries? How is it we are still dealing with sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia? How is this a world where stories like this happen? Don’t people learn from history? How are we still here?

On my podcast (Graymalkin Lane), I recently had the chance to interview the writer Ann Nocenti. During our conversation, she referenced all the times she felt despair in her life, from the Civil Rights Movement and subsequent student uprisings against the government during Viet Nam (a time where police used extreme violence against protestors for peaceful assembly) to the threat of nuclear armageddon (part of national policies to support American ventures against communism) to the AIDS crisis itself (where gay men died by the thousands while the government ignored them). There are a thousand thousand stories told before this, during this, after this, that inspired rage and pain and loss among society, and afterward nothing happened. People got used to their outrages and they got tired of hoping for change, so they went about their lives and time passed and new problems arose and another generation started.

And now here we are. Often when I right, I have a goal in mind. I have something to process, something to work out. But today, I don’t. I feel exhausted. Overwhelmed. I’m not even going to edit this blog post (my first in ages), I just want the overwhelming emotion and confusion to stay here. To be here as a time-stated witness of how awful all of this feels.

The world moves so much faster now. The news is never-ending. We can’t process one terrible story without four more hitting us across the face. How do we possibly stay well and out of the constant trauma? I can’t remember what happened a month ago. It’s relentless, this grief we are living with. There are so many of us now, and I want to believe we can get better but I worry that the best I can do is get by. Plan for this month with no assurance of a future in place. God, the economy and housing market alone. I can’t.

What will it take to change? History is viewed in years at a time. We think of World War II now as one big event. We forget the years of build-up, the individual freedoms and lives lost, the entire changing of country borders and history events. We think of concentration camps and Hitler and D-Day and the Berlin Wall and forget the rest. How will this time be viewed? What will these years look like? And will the vantage we view it from be any better than the one we have now?

I rolled over at 12:30 this morning and my mind drifted back into consciousness. My back was aching, something familiar at night, and I reached down to shift the pillow between my knees while rolling over, then smoothed the sheets and blankets over me to keep them from being crumpled in the morning. My eyes blinked open briefly, sensing something heavy out there in the dark, but not out there at all, but within instead. Having heard me move, the small, fluffy dog who sleeps at the foot of our bed jumped up and laid next to me, wanting my warmth, and I nestled my fingers into his fur as he collapsed against me. Mike, the man I love, lay behind me, the movement of his breath familiar to me, comfortable, safe. 

12:32. I knew automatically I wouldn’t be going back to sleep. I know my insomnia patterns well. Someone had jiggled the mouse on my brain computer and the screen saver was already off. I get like this when there is something weighing at me, something under the surface that needs to be expressed. Some worry, some fear, some anger, some sadness, something that needs to be released, that refuses to contain itself any longer. 

I thought of my son. I have two, and they are both always on my mind, but this time I thought of my oldest. He’s thirteen and a half and he’s asking hard questions. He has one foot in childhood and one in adulthood and it’s almost as if he is unsure where he can step. He knows he is loved and safe at home, but I have no influence on the rest of the world. If he is struggling in math, I can hire a tutor. If he is sad, I can comfort him. But I’m not with him out there in the world day by day, hour by hour, as he forms relationships with peers, as he struggles to find his place in a culture he doesn’t understand, as he wonders where he comes from and what he is working toward. I want to protect him from all of that, but I can’t. More than that, I shouldn’t, because if I keep him too sheltered, how will he ever grow. They don’t tell you about this part of parenting, or if they do, we don’t know how to listen. Who is he going to become? Who will he be? Will he find love, and will he love himself? And will I be around to see it? I sigh deeply. Of course I’ll be around. But what if I’m not? I have worked so hard to create this life, this home, out of the shattered and confusing pieces that make up my past, and I want to be around to enjoy it, but nothing is guaranteed. Nothing can be. We are all temporary. 

12:33. I adjust my hips. My back still aches. And there is a now familiar throb behind my navel. The tissue or cartilage or whatever is back there feels hard and thick. For years, I had a small hernia protruding ever so slightly behind my navel, but a few months ago, it started to get worse. I was supposed to get married to this man in my bed just two weeks ago, but a global pandemic and insane numbers of positive Covid cases made us reconsider and reschedule the wedding for later in the year. So since I had the week off of work already, I scheduled a hernia surgery. I had a consultation with the surgeon just a few weeks before, a man I had never met. He was warm and friendly and immediately put me at ease. We made small talk about his wife and three small children, and about my partner and two sons. He discussed his work as a transplant specialist, and the hard work he had put in to do this work that now literally saves lives. I commended him and told him about my work as a trauma therapist, and he commended me. He discussed his love of Utah and the outdoors. He walked me through the surgical procedure. A week later, two weeks ago from the time I write this, I showed up at the hospital and this kind and skilled man repaired my hernia. The healing process has been more intense, in ways, than I expected, and when I called to speak to this man, he gave me kind and warm advice. One week ago, I went back in for my consultation. He looked at the surgical scar healing and told me I was right on track. He remembered me. He asked about my children, my podcast. We scheduled a follow-up appointment and he shook my hand and told me to call if I needed anything. And then the next morning, he died. He went skiing with his wife, according to the news story, and he, quite literally, fell off a cliff. He died. I still have my stitches. 

12:35. This shouldn’t feel new to me. It’s the way of things. Just yesterday, I saw the remnants of a terrible car accident as I drove by. I do trauma work for a living, and the stories of people I’ve helped after traumas begin flickering through my brain on a speed reel. The woman whose parachute didn’t open. The child ran over by the lawnmower. The man who took a canoe to work one day and drowned. The woman in the grocery store who was raising her grandchildren until a man walked into the store with a gun one day. The man who shot himself while driving down the freeway. How do I carry all this down in there? Where does it go? How do I store it?

12:37. Yesterday, I saw a meme. On the top, it discussed an oil spill from the news. At the bottom, a sarcastic comment reminded people to not drink from plastic straws. It was a commentary on how we can make little decisions and hope for a wider impact, but the billionaires and the corruptions and the sins of our ancestors and the corporations out there undo it all, every good decision being made, and they wipe it all out with one oil spill. 

12:38. In seven separate therapy sessions this week, clients discussed an old Mormon man in the leadership of the Mormon church who, in a public video, made light of deep impactful issues related to race and gender. I watched his words. This man basically commanded those listening to stop questioning god and the Mormon church. He told them to just hold fast and find reasons to stay because leaving would be catastrophic. I wasted so many goddamn fucking years in the middle of that, denying my own happiness to hold on desperately to what now is so clear to me as brainwashing and indoctrination. But every day I see people who still wrestle with this. I get to help them, but it feels like the straw against the oil spill sometimes. My heart starts to beat at a quicker tempo and the dog stretches against me and licks my chin. 

12:40. I have a stack of books on my desk downstairs, and I need to tackle them all. One is a book of art for an artist this weekend that I’m interviewing on my podcast. Another is a comic book that I need to review before the same recording. I have pages of notes on both. I’m working hard at this podcasting thing, and it’s wonderful, but I don’t know where it’s going or if it is ever going to become what I want it to be. Two more books are on the lives of David Ben-Gurion and Menachim Begin, two men who were instrumental in the formation of Israel. These two men were one writer’s templates for the characters Professor X and Magneto, the fictional characters whose competing philosophies are the framework for the entire X-Men franchise. This podcast is helping me think of this beloved franchise differently. It’s like a popular television show that has been running for two hundred seasons, and I find researching it to be challenging and nerdy and fulfilling and fun, but oh my god I have so much to do. 

12:42. My best friend’s grandmother died this last week, and I know he’s hurting. I have another close friend that I haven’t spoken to in a year because his instability was bad for me. Another close friend is taking a big risk on himself and I’m so damn proud of him. Oh my god I’m so tired. The dog rolls on to his back and I scratch his tummy gently. My mom and I are working on our relationship and it’s challenging. My step-father is getting cancer treatments. I have three siblings I speak to infrequently, and two that I haven’t spoken to in years but fuck I don’t want to think about that right now. I need to sleep! My heart picks up faster. If I don’t sleep now, I’m going to be up for hours. I have to see clients in the morning. I’ll be operating at three hours sleep and will have been up all night. 

12:44. I’m hungry. My stomach rumbles and I think of all the times I’ve sat down to come up with nutrition and exercise plans in the last ten years but I never quite get there. I think of the time I saw a friend at the gym a few years ago, and he asked how I was doing, and I told him I had just finished making a documentary and I was so proud of it and I worked so hard on it, and he gave me a once-over with his eyes in response and said ‘now if you could just work that hard on your body instead’ and then he laughed it off, and I thought ‘fuck you, man’. And the memory of that gives me the same thought. ‘Fuck you, man.’ My partner is so perfectly trim and fit and I want that but maybe I just don’t have what it takes to achieve that. Or maybe that’s just another excuse. Fuck you, man. 

12:45. Maybe I could lay on the couch and turn on something mindless. Maybe the sound of David Attenborough’s voice could put me back to sleep. Maybe soft music could do it. Or a podcast. That could work. Maybe I should just get up. I could do the dishes the laundry clean out the fridge sweep the fucking garage. I could read. I could type. I could jump on the exercise bike. I could do my taxes. Why am I laying here, what’s wrong with me, if I can’t sleep I might as well be productive. Fuck you, man. 

12:47. The dog jumps down to the floor and I know he’ll expect to go outside now. He knows I’m awake. And as soon as I stand up, my body will match my brain and there will be no more rest tonight. I’ve got too much inside me. My kids, my heart, my future, the doctor died, that racist prick at the Mormon pulpit, Menachim Begin and Magneto, another fitness plan to write and not stick to, taxes, conversations I need to have but never will, that ugly thing that guy said to me that one time. 

12:48. I get up. I need to write. Maybe writing will address both the straw and the oil spill, at least for now. At least until I try skiing one morning.

As a therapist, it is part of my job to sit with people during their trauma and to witness it and then, as much as I can, guide them through it. But at the end of the hour, my job is done. The people that I’m helping have to leave and walk away with their own trauma, living with it on their own. I absorb the pain. I listen. I witness. I validate. I comfort. Then they leave, and I have to find a way to be okay, to be able to move on to the next person. I have to be ready to witness trauma again.

But while I am a therapist at work, and while that is a hat I’m honored to wear, I’m not a therapist in my off hours. I’m a human male with a partner and friends and a family. I read books. I experience history. I watch the news and react emotionally to the stories. While I believe in the strength of people, I sometimes lose faith in the world. This last five years has been rough on me, emotionally and spiritually. I can’t comprehend so much of what is happening, and I don’t now, despite all of my skills, how to even process some of it. I react with pain and emotion, and I try, as much as I can, to be okay at the end of the day just like anybody else.

Some news hits me much more profoundly, on a deep trauma level, than others. The Congressional testimony of Christine Blausey-Ford hit me deeply and painfully. The storming of the Capitol Building left stones in my stomach for days. The video depicting the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police officer Derek Chauvin caused me to weep tears of deep grief. I try to teach other people how to process their pain, but far too often I can’t even process my own.

I can’t rationally comprehend the country I live in sometimes. I can’t understand it. It hurts, in enrages, it aches. I can’t understand how we are still blaming victims of sexual assault for their own assaults. I can’t understand why we are still having conversations about gun violence in a country that is plagued by hate crimes. I can’t understand those who excuse police officers for executing men and women of color, or anyone, when other options were available at all. These hate crimes hit me as hard as the news of mass shootings. I don’t understand how everyone is not up in arms and ready for change. It’s horrifying, and humiliating, and painful. My heart is broken, and I’ve grown numb to the sensation of my heart being broken. It’s been a daily barrage of all of this. I’m exhausted. We are all exhausted.

I am in Columbus, Ohio for a weekend. My hotel room is right down the street from the Capitol building. On my first night here, I walked past a painted mural dedicated to the memories of George Floyd (with the words “I Can’t Breathe!”), Breonna Taylor (“I Can’t Sleep!”), and Ahmaud Armery (“I Can’t Run!”), and the memories of so many others showed up in my head, and the heavy gut-wrenching pain showed up back up in my deep stomach. I don’t know how to sit with pain like that. It just aches. Days before I arrived here, Derek Chauvin was convicted of George Floyd’s murder. Daunte Wright was killed in the same city during the trial. And just after that, right here in Columbus, 16-year old Ma’Khia Bryant was killed by police during a mental health episode.

I stood among a crowd of hundreds, unexpectedly, just outside the capitol in a silent protest. Incredible and eloquent black leaders stood in the middle with megaphones, shouting words of pain and hurt and righteous anger. Armed officers surrounded the building itself. The protest was peaceful, and went long into the night, with marching in the street with cars driving up and down the roads blaring horns. And I wept.

A few years ago, I went to the African American History Museum in Washington D.C. and inside lay the coffin of Emmett Till, a young teenage boy who was killed by white men in the South years ago. They killed the boy because he allegedly whistled at a white woman. The men were arrested, put on trial, and acquitted. It… hurt to view his coffin. It hurt. That’s what this rally felt like.

Over the past several years, I spent untold hours making a documentary about a young man, Gordon Church, who was brutally killed for being gay. There was justice in his case, but researching was far from easy. It hurt as well. That’s what this rally felt like.

I’m aching to build a better world or my sons. I so badly want mass shootings and police killings to end now. I’m tired of aching. Everyone I know is tired of aching. I want a better world. And I want the pain to go away.

I’m tired of hurting.

            When I was a child, I had a love of dice. I loved the idea of things being randomly determined, rules being set in place by the roll of the dice and then having to be followed. I might make a list of activities to do in a day and then roll the dice to see what activity I might actually do. As I grew older, I became aware of probability, realizing that sixes and eights were rolled far more frequently than twos and twelves. So instead I would cut up strips of paper, fold them evenly, and drop them in a hat, drawing one out at a time. I’d leveled the playing field, making the determination more random. 

            The idea of this, of creating rules about chaos and living with the consequences, always tickled the edges of my brain, gave me a sense of whimsy, of adventure, around things as mundane as what book to read or what chore to do. I’ve carried that with me into adulthood. I still love the sense of random determination. I don’t wonder why I am this way, I just embrace the sense of self-determination that comes with it, the awe and sense of being alive that comes with it. 

            When I got a little older, and childhood melded into adolescence, when I became aware of the dark things in the corners of my life that I was seeking to escape from, I leaned in to the random just a bit more, needing it to keep me sane and okay during difficult times. I needed escape, to move to that part of my brain that so desperately needed to be inspired. Dice and folded strips of paper allowed me to avoid the trauma of growing up gay and hidden, the feelings of heaviness that accompanied the abuse, the indoctrination, the shame within me.

            As a young teenager, I had dreams of just moving away somewhere and starting over. I had visions of just getting in my car and beginning again in a new state, a new city. I thought of rolling a massive amount of dice and driving that number of freeway exits and then pulling in to a new city. I’d find an apartment and a job. I’d read books and make friends and no one would know me. I could start my life over, have a fresh beginning. At the time, my perspective of the world was small. I was only accustomed to small towns and farming communities. Idaho Falls, Idaho felt like the biggest city possible. I soon realized the dice were too confining once again. Maybe I’d generate a random zip code instead. Five numbers pushed together that would dictate where I’d begin again. Fargo, North Dakota or Savannah, Georgia, or Olathe, Kansas. 

            I got my first chance to start over at age 19 when I went on a Mormon mission. I was a quiet, compassionate, curious gay Mormon teen, so busy being ashamed of myself that I couldn’t see past the horizon. I ended up in big and small cities in Pennsylvania, and Delaware, and Maryland. Random determinations as I had no control where I would be or who I would live with. And I grew in ways while shrinking in others. It was a new beginning, but one with confining and difficult rules, and tremendous amounts of painful growth as I tried to shove me, the square peg, into the round hole of Mormon obedience. I hated myself there just like I’d hated myself at home because I wasn’t what everyone expected me to be. And there can be no healing when you hate yourself for all the reasons they tell you that you should hate yourself. 

            I repeated this pattern for the next ten years. I went to a Mormon college and worked Mormon jobs. Even when I had fresh starts, it was under the guise of Mormon expectations. Then I tried the Mormon marriage. And one of the things that kept me sane and alive during those years was random determination. I used dice and folded pieces of paper to keep me entertained. Books and music and household chores were constantly determined by the fate of random determination. In some way I can’t articulate well, when I surrendered to this random nature, I didn’t have to make decisions by myself. I could put away those parts of myself that felt shame, that yearned for something else, and I could just go on autopilot and somehow be okay. I wasn’t okay, but I could convince myself that I was. 

            I’ve been out of the closet for ten years now, and I’ve changed everything about myself. I’ve worked hard at bringing all parts of myself to the table, without judgment, and embracing those parts of me. One part that I accepted long ago is my love of random determination. I don’t use dice or slips of paper any longer, but I accept that there are times in my life when I need to just be tossed by the cosmic winds. I need to create space in my life to just let opportunity find me. Most of my favorite memories over the past decade have come from these times. I plant myself in a new location, a city I’ve never been to , and I see what I find. I just… exist. I fill my time by letting the world spread out in front of me, and I just see what I find. 

            In the past decade, I’ve taken myself to Juneau, Alaska, and Portland, Oregon, and Charleston, South Carolina, and Brattleboro, Vermont, and Portland, Maine, and Sante Fe, New Mexico, and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and Halifax, Nova Soctia, and a dozen other cities off the beaten path. I buy airfare, and I book a centrally located room, and then I make no plans. I take a few books (usually randomly selected), and my laptop, and then I just find what I find. I’ve ended up at concerts and plays, sipping drinks and bars, at museum exhibits, at poetry readings, at local drag shows. I have walked alongside rivers. I’ve started conversations in coffee shops. I’ve carried notebooks and written poetry. I’ve made time for myself to be centered and creative. A part of me comes alive. I write, and think, and center, and observe. I feel at peace. My demons can come to the surface and I can face them head on and create peace around them. It’s my new religion in a way. It’s my sanity. Not an escape any longer, just a part of myself that I need in order to be well. A part of me that refuses to be closeted any longer. 

             A year ago, Covid hit. And everything changed. I began home-schooling my sons. I closed down my office and began working from home. My gym closed. My planned trips were cancelled. My story-telling performance nights were cancelled. I sat at a computer for six to ten hours per day, and spent the rest of the time doing school lessons for my sons. Social events were cancelled. And I stopped writing. The parts of my spirit that sing, the randomness, the spiritual aspects of my nature, disappeared. They were lost to the expectations as the world shut down. My solace became walks outdoors, quiet moments at home with doors closed. And so I put all of my energy into making myself the best home environment I could.  We purchased a home and got a dog, and I took on more clients and responsibilities. And my inner core withered away. It went silent. It cried for release, but I had no room to give it voice. I had plenty to be grateful for (my amazing children, my wonderful fiancée, my adorable dog, a few close friends), but I had no solace for myself. My spark went out, and my creativity went away. 

            Until this weekend. Weeks ago, I booked a trip to Columbus, Ohio, and booked a room to stay in, and then I made no plans. My goal for this weekend, as I spend some time alone, is to rediscover myself. To talk. To observe. To drink coffee and put blank sheets of paper in front of me and then to just… be. To find what I find. To come alive again. To start my spark again. To dream and center and push forward again. 

            So here I am, universe. Guide me forward and help me find what I find. Toss the dice, fold up the paper, and help me find myself again. 

8 months ago, the Corona Virus vastly changed my American way of life. One day, everything felt normal. I was dropping the kids off at school every day, working from my therapy office, planning trips and vacations a few months in advance, and enjoying weekends with my little family. My partner and I had a robust social life, going out with friends, double-dating, hosting movie nights, seeing movies and plays and live music. I went to the gym five times per week. I spent 6 to 10 hours per week in coffee shops, writing about my life or researching passion projects, like the one that became the documentary Dog Valley.

And then one day, everything was cancelled. School was out, and restaurants were closed, and gyms were closed, and coffee shops were closed, and suddenly it felt unsafe to go into the office. I had three trips planned that had to t cancelled as well: a family vacation to Cancun that the kids had looked forward to for months, a trip to show my partner New York City for the first time, and a week in Winnipeg with my best friend, one we had just booked after weeks of talking about it. The kids couldn’t see their friends at recess and had a hard time understanding why. I reassured them that it would all be over soon.

And then Salt Lake City was struck by a few earthquakes. And then school got out for the summer. And I closed my therapy office and began working from home, which meant seeing clients over a computer instead of in person and also keeping small children entertained all day. I couldn’t travel, and without the space to travel or even go to coffee shops, my writing inspiration went silent. I suddenly had nothing to write about. I needed to reassess, to stay happy if I was going to keep happiness in my home, and that meant changing the way I cope with everything. I’d have to change me first, then set the new trend for my family. And then there were the crazy hurricane winds that blew over ancient trees all across the city and knocked out power for days. We just went numb after a while.

Now normally, my kids had very robust social lives themselves. Play dates, painting classes, trips to the zoo and aquarium, weekly visits to the swimming pool. With everything closed, we had to change it all up. I began planning little ‘event nights’ for most nights during the week. A solo dad day for each son during the week, where we could focus on doing something they loved one on one. A Disney movie night. A board game night. A night where we ordered take out. A craft night. A coloring night. A Smash Bros tournament night. Nights of home-cooking meals together. I signed both boys up for some monthly ‘subscription’ boxes, where crafts and projects would be mailed to them. We started doing yoga at home, going to the park more, and taking one night once per month to go stay in a hotel nearby somewhere just for fun, a safe change of scenery that would allow us to continue creating memories.

And my own self-care began to shift as well. I started taking long bike rides, long baths, reading comic books more, thinking about new things to research down the line when it was safe again. I got mediocre equipment to start working out from home. I chose some shows to watch that I’d wanted to see for years and began powering through them a few episodes per day. I started taking long baths, and cooking from home more, and getting high more often, which meant my sleep was steadily improving. I saw clients over my computer from my own home, and found myself busier than ever, which meant more work but also more money coming in. Instead of spending time with lots of friends, we started hanging out with just two, another couple we had known for years. And then that couple broke up and we were spending time with only one person, my best friend Kole.

And then summer changed to fall, and the balance was disrupted again when we made the decision to not send the kids back to school. So suddenly it wasn’t just entertaining kids during the day while working impossible hours from home, it was now keeping them on task with school work while their anxiety soared and I was unavailable for hours at a time. Every moment I wasn’t doing therapy, I was suddenly helping with homework, playing the roles of teacher and tutor and parent all at once, while trying to get dishes and laundry done and bills paid. My bike rides slipped, the event nights stopped happening, and stress climbed slowly and steadily. Coping became much more difficult.

And so the conversation shifted. Again. If this was going to last a while, how do we make this better for my little family, keep optimism high and routine consistent? And so plans that were probably five years down the line suddenly became present-tense. My partner and I had talked about buying a house together somewhere in the future, having a garden in the back, maybe some chickens, and even getting a puppy. But with us both working from home and schooling the kids, the space and the change suddenly became a need instead of a want, and we opened ourselves up to the house hunt. And after all the searching, the appraisals, the financial and background paperwork, we found a cute little home that seemed perfect for our family. And then there was all the packing and sorting and storing, the cleaning and moving, the unloading and unpacking.

We spent three days in our new home, painting the kids walls and setting up furniture, getting used to where the new light switches and water mains were, learning about the water pressure in the shower and the length of the stairs in the dark. And then we got a new six-week old puppy, perhaps the cutest thing on the planet, and accepted all of the sleepless nights and responsibility that came with that. Covid numbers were going up, and here we were, ready for a new beginning, with space and solace to expand in.

And then the next day, the first one after the new puppy, I came down with Covid symptoms. And then Mike did. And the kids had to stay elsewhere for weeks, unable to enjoy the new home and bedrooms and puppy. And I was on the couch with fever, headaches, body aches, and extreme lethargy as a small puppy needed a tremendous amount of attention and to get up multiple nights per week.

Well, it’s been a few weeks since then. The Covid is gone, but the residual fatigue remains, making me so tired every evening that I want to go to bed at 7 pm–I understand this can last for a few months yet. I have an understanding of how this disease impacts human lives heavily and swiftly, and it has made me more afraid of it, because it could so easily strike my mother or another loved one. 300,000 American lives and millions worldwide. And I’m flummoxed at how callous most people are being about this. The virus continues to rage and claim lives.

It’s a few weeks later and we are in the throws of a Presidential election with consequences so vast on either side. I gladly call myself a liberal, and to me, Trump winning signals the end of democracy as we know it, as I see him as much more of a Hitler than a Roosevelt. But for many of my sane loved ones who voted for Trump, they have a similar fear of socialism, and they feel that voting in Biden may mean the end of their own version of democracy. The stakes are high and the battle lines are drawn and the whole world watches with eager anticipation. Me, I have an undercurrent of anxiety that won’t seem to go away.

It’s a few weeks later and the puppy is a slightly bigger puppy, who is playful and tired, sweet and aggressive in equal measure. We are absolutely enamored of him. The house needs a lot of attention and set-up and it has come to feel like a refuge for all of us in many ways. The kids are falling into a consistent routine. We made a happy little Halloween for us right there in our home, and we plan to do the same for the upcoming holidays.

And so six plus months have passed, and we have grown into new people. And we will continue to do so. But I find the best tool to combat all of this, the best thing to make it all okay, remains that routine, that daily focus on making life okay for all of us one day at a time. With that, we can use the optimism and consistency to recognize the people we are becoming. And, with all things, trials do their best to tear us down, and it is our skills in climbing back up that teach us new things about ourselves.

I hope when all this madness emerges that me and my family emerge from the ashes stronger and more hopeful than when we went into the fire.

I haven’t been writing lately. Like at all. No poetry. No stories. No blogs in five months. I even quit keeping my journal. The creative processes in my brain has quieted, shifting into the day to day routine and monotony of this Covid world we are living in.

The routine is a blessing some days. A challenge others. And some days, it is a drudgery. My spirit moves from soaring self-determination to quiet self-criticism, bordering on light depression at times.

I am richly blessed with a beautiful life. I have a lovely home, a handsome and dedicated man at my side, two curious and wonderful children. The bank account is doing great, considering I’m not traveling or spending money on things like entertainment. I’m working from home now. My therapy office is closed, but I’m busier than ever doing remote work over various computer platforms. I’m spending more time with the kids. We are coloring pictures, playing video and board games, reading books out loud, taking lots of walks. We are making plans to purchase a home and plant a garden and to get a family dog. All of those things make me soar with joy and light.

The most momentous thing to have happened since the quarantine measures, I mean besides the cancelling of school and the cancelled vacation plans and the cancelled story-telling events and not seeing friends or family for months… the most momentous thing is that the documentary I made was finished and it has debuted at various festivals. I’ll write more on this another time, but I’ll say that while it happened in a far different way than I once hoped, it has been a wonderful experience to see the story come to light.

Sometimes Covid has felt like a great opportunity for myself. I can read more. Really focus on nutrition and exercise, something I’ve been wanting to do for years. Build a few close friendships. Spend more time in my own skin. Write like never before. Make my house immaculate. Come up with a massive project that would inspire me for the next year.

But the opposite has happened, at least partially. I’m not laying around depressed every day or anything, but I’ve gone quiet on the inside. My perspectives have changed. My family relationships (boyfriend and sons) are stronger than ever. But my spirit has gone mute. I’m reading less. I’m watching more TV. At the start of the pandemic, I was riding my bike and doing intense workouts… now I’m doing lower intensity workouts and staying in to avoid the heat. I’m getting high more often, just enough to quiet the brain. Weirdly, I’m also sleeping better (maybe not so weirdly). I’m reaching out to friends less. My libido is lessened. I’m eating less junk food, but I’m not hitting the nutrition goals. I’m reading more comic books and finding silly projects to write about in order to avoid my brain getting crazy.

I miss being hungry. I miss telling stories. I miss having my feet on unfamiliar streets. I miss friends. I miss dancing. I miss live theater and music. I miss seeing clients in person instead of over a computer screen.

I don’t have a lot to say today, but I needed a place to voice my thoughts. I needed a spot to write down, to have a record of my experiences. I want to jump start my brain again. I want to be excited about life, to find poetry in the world. I want to form more healthy habits.

Life is absolutely wonderful. I am safe and well and loved. And yet it is important to let the soul express the rest as well. Maybe writing more regularly will awaken my hunger in other areas as well.

I miss being hungry.