Dear Blake, I blame the Theraflu

 Dear Blake, I blame the Theraflu

Dear Blake,

You know I usually have vivid dreams. They got more vivid when I started Zoloft again. 

But for the month after you left us, I didn't dream at all. 

It was a mercy, I thought. 

I knew it was only a matter of time before I had a dream about you. Meaning, I'd be seeing you in a way I couldn't control, couldn't explain, and would undoubtedly be so vivid that it felt real. 

Thursday night, I was feeling like garbage. You know I've been having random body aches, back pain, racing heart...the boost in seasonal flora also led to a boost in mucus. I've had the grossest, drippiest, post-nasal drip. The kind I can feel in my throat. It's swishing around in my lungs. In the morning and before bed, I have a hacking, disgusting cough. My entire body hurt.

Anyway, I took a Theraflu. I was desperate. And it worked, I slept 14 hours and woke up feeling less like I'd been hit by a motorcycle.

I crashed around 7 pm, half-waking around 3 am when I heard the blankets moving around next to me. 

"Oh, good, you're finally home." I thought, barely awake. "I've been worried." 

The Body Keeps The Score, and Mine is Losing

 The Body Keeps The Score, and Mine is Losing

CW: Talk of death 

This guy  Bessel van der Kolk wrote The Body Keeps The Score about the ways in which trauma affects the body. 

In a way, I already knew what happened. I'd received a few phone calls asking about medications Blake was on. The calls got a little more frantic, and I was frustrated because even if I teleported to the hospital in that moment, there was no way I could (or would want to) see him while the nurses and doctors worked on his tired body. The people at the desk had a hard time locating him. And I knew. In my body, I knew.

When I made it to the hospital to say goodbye to Blake, my first thought was that the nurses were playing some kind of joke with me that Blake was in on. We'd been going back and forth about him trying to do a little more around the house. "Alright, I get it, you're SICK-SICK, that was mean!" I'd say.

Dear Blake, I promise this is about you.

 Dear Blake, 

I promise this is about you. Well, it's about us. And me. And my new reality.

Your service was beautiful, by the way. Adam and Josh and the whole Soundstage crew made it possible. I know you'd tell me I could count on them to handle everything. As far as memorials go, it was nice. There was a great turn out, tons of people texting and checking in, and sending photos. 

Your uncle told a random anecdote in the MOST Southern MD accent and he basically stole the show. More than one person asked if I hired him. Nope, just...very clearly your family.

The whole day was kind of a blur honestly. I know I would gripe about being at shows and being ignored or minimized because I was "Blake's girlfriend" and not Lindsey, while people circled around you and sort of, it felt like many times, begrudgingly tolerated me. But being in your shoes, not being able to take three steps without someone talking to me was also challenging. I never considered what that might have been like for you. I know you relished it and enjoyed it, but damn. That was hard.

(Not a complaint, friends reading. I am grateful to everyone who came, I am so glad for everyone I spoke to, and I am sorry I couldn't spend hours with everyone there. I am much more introverted, much more awkward, far slower to warm up to people, and much shyer than Blake. My memory is also absolutely garbage right now, so it was a challenge to remember....anything. This is an observation of my experience and our personalities, not a judgement!)

Dear Blake

FWIW: This is our actual first photo together and I *HATE* it. I don't remember what led to this picture. I know we'd met VERY briefly before, but I felt like I knew you already. You never left. 

Hi Baby,

This goes without saying, I think, but I miss you immeasurably.

When you passed, I promised myself I would write or blog to you all the time. I'd capture every memory to look back on fondly. And I haven't.

It's not from lack of want, I promise. I want, more than anything, to document every memory. The truth is, everything is a Herculean task.

Bringing my computer down here took *effort.* Waking up takes effort. Sleep takes effort.

And every moment is marked by your absence. 

I wake up, smack dab in the middle of the bed, buried under blankets. Normally, I'd be tucked to one side under a sheet. You're not there.

I leave, there's no one to kiss good bye softly as I slide out the door.

Grief in the Age of Social Media

Grief in the Social Media Age

TW: De*th, su*cide 

I am, unfortunately, no stranger to grief. Although we could be considered old acquaintances, each time she visits is newly and uniquely horrifying.  I wrote a post about a girl in my high school who died, and the falling out with best friends over the years. All of those stories were complicated, like I was not complete sure of my role, the amount of acceptable grief I could feel, especially for those living. 

But grief, the literal and infinite result of loving someone who is no longer on this plane, she has returned.

Both of my grandfathers, my dad, and my grandma died when I was in high school within a roughly two year period.

My father passed when I was 16. He died by suicide. It's still not acceptable to talk about, people have accused my father of being selfish, of being weak. While he certainly could be those things, he was not. Losing someone to suicide does not make their death less tragic, somehow. I'd argue it makes it MORE upsetting, to be to that point, but I digress. 

I was 16. We had a complex relationship (that I have written about). I remember telling people it was an accident, only telling people I was very close to his true cause of death. I didn't want the judgement, the weird blend of pity and relief, to know that their own loved ones would surely pass of natural causes, many, many years from now.

It wasn't until adulthood that I started talking about suicide, walking in The Overnight, getting a suicide prevention tattoo. 

I Miss My Dad: The Unknowable

 

My mind is never-not-buzzing. There’s a constant hum in the background of everything, pestering, probing. The only time it is silent is when I am doing high-volume merchandise. Something about the chaos, the camaraderie, the attention to detail, is some sort of giant, pulsating STOP button on the thought-gnats constantly buzzing and procreating.

As much as I think, I feel. The news is a minefield, sending me into a rage spiral or an endless depth of sadness. Another murder. War in Sudan. Mass murder of Palestinians. Mostly children. Animal shelters overflowing with unwanted pets. Another woman…no, a child, forced against her will to carry a pregnancy to term.

“Children carjackers! The new DC threat?! At eleven!” featuring a steely faced white man arguing that these children need to be locked away for life. Absolutely no reflection on what’s causing the problem. All punishment, no prevention. A shallow answer for a shallow society.

Seeing an unhoused man yelling on the street triggers both fear and profound sadness…fear because he is much larger than I am, and seemingly unwell. He could easily corner me, harm me. And sadness because he does not deserve to live like this. Somewhere along the way, people have failed him. Maybe he has failed too. But he does not deserve constant human cruelty, nor the silent treatment from passersby, nor the hunger, nor the instability, nor the cold.

As our very fabric spirals and folds in on itself, so too does my brain.

What Could've Been: The COVID Crisis Gone to Waste

 What Could've Been
The COVID Crisis Gone to Waste

I've been thinking about the lost possibilities of the COVID era. I know, millions died, became disabled, lost their jobs, their homes, etc. etc. It was (and continues to be) in no uncertain terms, a massively disruptive, life-altering, tragic....thing. 

I keep thinking about two things: Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, where crises are exploited to establish "controversial or questionable policies while citizens are too distracted to engage and develop an adequate response," and Rahm Emmanuel's "never let a crisis go to waste." 

And COVID was- and is- a crisis. 

In the early days of COVID, the science murky and ever-changing, I mistakenly, naively, thought those who believed it fake would eventually come around, as they and their loved ones got seriously ill, spent time hooked up to ventilators, and tragically perished.

Oh, I was a sweet summer child.

People refused to forgo conveniences, for even an initial, limited amount of time. TWO WHOLE WEEKS?! I was in introvert heaven. I read. I walked my dog. I baked. It was lovely. But I digress.

Regardless of the science on masks (I'm not interested in re-hashing this debate), we couldn't even get people to agree to do this minorly inconvenient thing that could prevent their community, and themselves, from a potentially deadly disease. 

I get it. As much as I love to read and walk my dog, even in my most introverted days, I like to get a cup of coffee at the local coffee hut, peruse the library shelves, workout indoors, and hey, get my hair done. I did it because it seemed like the right thing to do to avoid sickness and to avoid giving sickness to others unknowingly.

In any case, COVID spiraled from a two-week stay at home order into a multi-year, multi-variant, ever-evolving crisis that left millions dead, millions out of work, millions of kids out of school, healthcare systems strained...

And I keep thinking- we let this crisis go to waste. ( I don't want to give Rahm too much credit here, but truly.) We could have done so much good (albeit, controversial good, like healthcare).

We could've had so much, done so much, improved people's lives in meaningful ways. Instead we settled for a few grand in payments and a vastly under-scrutinized PPP loan system that benefitted, largely, the already wealthy. States were left to create their own safety nets and supports, some states forgoing it entirely, even rejecting federal money. 

I just...I think of all the things we realized *are actually valuable, useful, and important* in society during that time: 

• Healthcare, including paying hospital staff! 
• Sick Days
• Good wages
• Teachers/School
• Art, Music, Entertainment, Books, Media
• Childcare
• Social Safety Nets, including food assistance, tenant protections, etc. 
• Clean, safe streets and parks (we spent SO MUCH TIME hiking)
• Remote work/flex work as a standard option for many office jobs
• COMMUNITY

I mean, no duh, right? (And this doesn't even touch on a lot of social stuff, like having a safe and loving family to spend time around. Abuse resulting in emergency room visits increases during financial crises.)

And don't get me wrong, COVID was/is horrible. During the crisis though, we were faced with a choice. And overall, we failed to harness this crisis for the greater good. I mean, fairly so, because we had sickness, and financial struggle, and kids out of school, and jobs lost...and we got a few measly grand over the entire thing. We, collectively, had other shit to worry about. And I get it. 

I just think of the once in a generation chance we had to do stuff. We could have- and should have: 

• Offered some form of health coverage to all, untethered to jobs. Hired, paid, scheduled the nurses, doctors, and hospital staff like actual humans doing actually important, necessary, demanding work.
• Mandated paid sick days, keeping ill people from getting others ill too.
• Brought wages in line with the cost of living. It is truly insane that the minimum wage is $7.25, UNCHANGED since 2009.
• Recognized the importance of teachers and school staff, not only in providing an education, but also in providing a safe environment for kids (don't even get me started on what the astro-turfed fascists are doing in their attempts to end/gut public schools currently). 
• Arts grants for writers, musicians, entertainers, etc. We consumed their work to pass the time through COVID and we continue to thank them by telling them to "get real jobs" and demand to consume their work for free.
• Subsidized childcare with higher paid childcare workers. (I can't imagine how much of a nightmare all of this was/is for single parents who have to work outside the home.)
• Improved social safety nets for the most vulnerable people (at least), allowing them to stay fed, clothed, warm, and in their homes. 
• Used a modern-day CCC to plant trees, clean green spaces, install lights, maintain hiking/biking trails and parks. 
• Remote/flex work to allow people to spend less time commuting, more time at home, with more control over how they spend their working hours.
• Forged stronger communities with our families, neighbors, friends, etc. (There was plenty of this, but more communities are better!)

To be honest, one could make even a fiscally conservative argument for a lot of these policies- money invested in kids has a high return, results in lower crime, a healthier population can work longer/more productively, people with money spend money, blah blah blah.

If there's one thing I have learned through my 34 years in following politics, political movements, and popular opinion, it's never *really* about the money.

And so, in the end, it seems like "rugged individualism" and "abject cruelty" won over common sense, decency, creativity, and a general love and appreciation of our fellow humans. 

And I don't mean to imply that no one did *anything,* because TONS of people came out to feed their neighbors, tutor kids, donate money, drop off needed supplies, visit, video chat, write letters, do all sorts of things to provide for those nearby.

But we could've done more than mere individual efforts. Individual efforts are amazing, generous, beautiful outpourings of pure love of others. But let's be honest, one person, a small group even, can only feed so many people out of a truck, or even an arena. Jose Andres is the shit, and the work he does to feed people is lovely and admirable- but it's not enough to say, end hunger in America. 

We need systemic change.

And while I understand how incredibly divided we are, driven by populist figures, the 24-hour news cycle, social media, all vying for our precious, limited attention, clicks, and shares, 

I feel like we really fucking blew it. 

Case in point: 

At the end of March, the remaining 35 states that expanded SNAP benefits will see those benefits expire, meaning that the average person will see 90 fewer dollars a month. Some households will see a reduction of $250 dollars a month.

(And a note: SNAP benefits can't be used to purchase pre-cooked, hot meals, pet food, grooming products, cleaning products, pads/tampons, which means reduced budgets will be stretched even further when say, someone or their kid has a period. You know, every month.)

There's a church I pass every day that gives away clothes, coats, food. Tuesday at 10:30 is food day.  Every Tuesday, when I leave for my morning workout at 7:30 am, there's a line of people. Even on rainy days, frigid days with high winds, there are people, sitting on the steps of the church, waiting for their weekly food box. By the time I leave again for work around 10am, the line stretches around the block.

This is one church, in less-wealthy area of a very wealthy county.

Nothing has changed.

Wages have not risen. The housing crisis worsens. There's talk of even more recession, more lost jobs. Our healthcare system is un-fucking-tenable and unsustainable. The GOP is amping up their war on public education. There's a laser-focused attack on trans people and trans kids, drag queens, LGBTQ people, fueled by falsehoods. Rights are being stripped away by the same people who cried "my body, my choice (to get COVID/not be vaxxed!)." Families, people, are going without. 

And you know what? There will be more crises. More pandemics. More storms. More, more, more. It's unavoidable. That's how the world works, especially when we're essentially whacking it with a big stick, waiting for the money to fall out.

We are living in a system that allows people to suffer when we could alleviate that suffering, even slightly. 

And instead, we have chosen to do nothing. 

And I'm not sure how to reckon with that.