Today is day 89 of social isolation.
March 13th was nearly 3 months ago and 3 weeks before the shit hit the familial fan.
On April 6th, my brother's wife had a mental health emergency. In the midst of it, K & I managed to convince them to let us take my 6-month old niece to our house for respite. If we only knew then what we know now...
We spent the first week navigating infuriating phone calls with no real plan in place (though that ended up being what happened the entire time, little to no plan in place) and my parents taking a complete and utter backseat to problem solving with us. She stayed with us for 6 weeks and went back to her parents on 5/16.
It's been such a swirl of emotions. While the shitty parts were occurring, I was more than ready for her to go home (those parts being her parents lack of cohesion and driving us nuts). But in the good parts.... She was our child, we became a little family, and boy oh boy does it hurt that she is gone now.
I can hardly look at the pictures/videos they post of her without busting into tears. I've been a mess with pushing K, too. I'm so ready for that part of my life to begin NOW. I want to be married NOW. I want to start trying to have kids NOW.
Life is far too short which is even more apparent now. But we can't see eye to eye about it. K still wants some semblance of a wedding ceremony that will never be what we dreamed of. The pandemic caused the UMC to postpone the vote we have been waiting for and delaying our wedding for to honor her parents. Our church STILL has not a decision. Her dad is in an even more precarious job position.
Speaking of K's parents. Her dad finally admitted that he would not want a single picture of himself on the internet placing him at our ceremony and would rather we elope. Talked with K about it and after lots of tears we decided to elope. Well... we told K's parents and K's mom didn't like that we had uninvited them which meant that she and K's dad never had a discussion about what he and I talked about... So very frustrating. Now, parents are invited but not sure if the whole photo debacle still exists.
There have been mass protests all over the country about police violence against black people after there were several well documented cases happening all in a row. The government response was to send the military to the riots and protests. First amendment rights went out the window. We watched protesters be gassed and hit with rubber bullets in the middle of the day because the president wanted a photo op. We are falling into a fascist regime with a dictator and it is very scary to see so many people who range from apathetic to downright unbelieving that there is anything wrong happening. K and I have donated like crazy, posted resources and acted in solidarity, but my anxiety about being in crowds right now during the pandemic have kept us from protesting. Our privilege is very apparent these days and we are trying to keep vigilant to our reflex reactions and make changes to our unconscious bias. This will be a lifelong journey to be anti-racist.
Whew. This has been the hardest 3 months I've had in the last few years.
