You must find a way to live with yourself
no matter what is happening outside
Hi! It’s been a few months! I sincerely don’t know how that happens. What is time?
I’ve been working on a series for premium subscribers. No pressure, but since the system no longer sends out teasers to free subscribers, here are the three latest posts in case you want to upgrade and take a gander:
The next installment, No one saves us but ourselves, is written and is just being edited down from ten million words. Because that’s always easy and simple for me to do.
These posts are about my abusive relationship with my ex-fiance who is now in jail, guest starring some besties from high school and college. It’s all leading up to the person I became and who I was when I met Eric. Part of this process has been reading over the letters Eric and I wrote to one another before we’d met in person. The letters are precious and also a little embarrassing — especially in the beginning. But I’m so grateful I have them.
Let’s catch up!
A lot has happened since I was last whining about my kitchen renovation* and I’m not exactly sure where to start.
* Which does, if I’m completely honest, look like someone’s ‘before’ picture on reddit. It’s okay! We’re just glad walls are closed up and drywall dust is no longer raining down upon us.
Two of my kids have moved out to attend school. It happened pretty rapidly near the end of last summer and early this year. It has been different and weird! And also sort of wonderful? Wait, that sounds awful. I mean they’ve been homesick and come home a lot, and while I don’t want them to be homesick — obviously I want them to launch and thrive and everything, especially after the devastation we’ve lived (and are living) through — it is also sweet. I’m glad they like me and us and home!
My maternal grandmother died in February and I have NOT integrated it at all. I’m so upset and any time I get a minute and think about her, I just fall apart. It doesn’t seem real and I suppose it should. She was bed-ridden after a bad fall and had two broken legs that couldn’t be repaired. Her situation is ripe for the “She’s in a better place” type of condolences, but it doesn’t help. Grief compounds and I’m a wreck.
Here we all are on the day of her funeral (below photo). If my coat seems too cheery, I wore it because green was her favorite color; my dress underneath is sufficiently somber. I had to speak and I was awkward and sweaty and thought I’d pass out, but I got through it.
Here’s a little bit about the kind of person she was (from my talk at her funeral):
…[N]osing around as I was wont to do, I saw a calendar in one of my uncle’s rooms with a gasp bikini model on it. Horrified, I went straight upstairs to tell grandma. She was knitting something and glanced up at me over her glasses and said, “Whatever makes him happy makes me happy.” She was so unbothered and unfussed, and in a world with many rules and expectations where I often felt like I would never be good enough, she was a powerful reminder that whoever I was, was plenty.
She made all of us feel like we were good enough and deserving of love. I never questioned my worth to her. She loved me no matter what. Her home was safe and warm and welcoming. It is so supremely strange that it will be changing, that my parents might move upstairs and renovate her rooms. It’s the natural way of things, I realize, but I hate it.
I’m about to get political.
If it makes you uncomfortable, you can scroll to the links, but IMO, being apolitical is no longer an option. Disagree with me if you like, but maybe don’t skip. This is not even a fraction of what I could say.
My grandmother was also a lifelong democrat — a little unusual for a member of the Mormon church, at least since the Reagan era. She was often the only one in the family I could commiserate with when it came to politics and the alarming un-Christlike vibe I got from my very republican/religious surroundings. (And listen! The two party system is broken! I get it! I’m frustrated with my party for not doing more. And I’m frustrated with how it often feels like a sportsball game where you love your team no matter what and I love mine and all we do is paint our faces and shout at each other. But Christian Nationalism is terrifying and is completely inimical to what Jesus actually taught. And it’s what is happening. Right now.)
I mean, the country is on fire and I find this iteration of Trump’s presidency terrifying. Waking up and reading the news every morning feels like I’m trapped in a really weird version of Groundhog Day, only instead of reliving the same day over and over, I’m in a circus side show where everything keeps exploding in new and more devastating ways. That sounds like hyperbole, but it’s reality.
There isn’t a whole lot I can do in my very rural, very conservative corner of the world. I boycott. I call, I write. I vandalize cybertrucks (just kidding!). I show up and support those waving posters at the bridge in Idaho Falls while a frightening man dressed in camouflage carrying an automatic weapon walks around in his MAGA hat.
I also work and shower and do dishes and swim laps and play Rummikub with the kids, and watch mindless TV and remind myself to breathe in and out and take my antidepressants, all while carving out some time to scream into the void. Last night, nursing a mother of a headache, I drove to Wendy’s (they made a statement that they are still supporting DEI!) for a strawberry lemonade and then sipped it while massaging my temples on Eric’s headstone. Is this self care? Sure! Why not?
How are you all holding up? Are you also watching your 401Ks shrink and attempting to hold that flavor of alarm with the same heart and mind that is also watching ICE wrongfully send a father to an El Salvadoran prison? How are we supposed to handle all of this at once? I don’t know! But I am going to eat another dish of ice cream and rewatch Severance while I can still afford treats and streaming services.
Links! I guess!
If you also disassociated by watching Severance, I highly recommend the Ben Stiller & Adam Scott podcast! What a treat they both are.
Remember when everyone started growing tomatoes during the pandemic? Maybe we should consider another return to Victory Gardens. I’m considering getting chickens again, too.
Remember how much I hated The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes? Well, I also hated Sunrise on the Reaping. If you haven’t read it yet, please consider this very mild non-spoiler: Young Haymitch, after much build-up and hinting, uses smuggled wires and coins to build a potato battery up a tree. A POTATO BATTERY. He uses this to light his way as he juggles said POTATO BATTERY with a nearly dead HUMAN GIRL as they scramble down a tree to safety. I repeat. Potato battery. Human girl. CLIMBING DOWN A TREE. The battery serves no other purpose and is not even the most dumb thing that happens in the story.
I also read Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green and while it is a tough read (WHY CAN’T WE ALL JUST TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER?), it contains beautiful stories of hope and empowerment toward the end. I recommend! Here is my review.
Did you, by chance, catch the heartwarming story about Garbanzo the cat on Instagram? If not, do scroll back and find the posts where Garbanzo is a painfully matted, hissy, bitey, scratchy kitty with serious PTSD and enjoy the incredible way her foster mom helps her heal.
A very rare interview with Tracy Chapman! Where she extolls the power of libraries! “It was my second home, and I read everything that I could get.”
This article made me ugly cry. Note: the article contains realistic paintings of nude mature ladies! They are beautiful and my messed up brain tells me their old lady bodies are all better and more valid than my old lady body, but that’s why I need to read and see more things like this. We are all beautiful.
Probably a link better suited for the premium fam, but guys, new Mormon garments are coming to the U.S. this year and it has been MIND BOGGLING to watch the LDS influencers model and talk about them. I left the church seven years ago and still have never worn a sleeveless top or dress around family. If everyone starts rolling up to family parties in tank tops, my mind is going to explode. And I’m happy for them! I am! Please enjoy wider clothing options and sun on your shoulders! It’s nice! But it is also going to be incredibly weird. @dearmormonme on Instagram has a highlight about garments that goes into why this is so strange and gas-lighty for us ex-mos. I highly recommend checking it out!
Title & subtitle are courtesy the peerless Margaret Attwood, from the Handsmaid’s Tale:
To survive, you must find a way to live with yourself, no matter what is happening outside.