What Phase is This? The Most Exhausting One.

Remember when we used to just go to things? And we would just drive our little cars there and get out and skip in and spend too much time and too much money and then leave? Then in March we all stayed home and it was sucky, but it was also unified because we are all doing it. And we were all wiping down our groceries and not going to school and eating more calories and working from home. I would send and receive text messages, like hey I wish we could hang out, but we were all in agreement that none of us would. And so we sat on the couch and we watched all the shows and we looked out our windows like what is this world?

Fast forward to June

Now there is no real protocols that everyone follows. We are all at different places, different areas of comfort. I have people that come up to me and ask is school opening? I heard Lewiston is doing choice school and what is Gardiner doing? I just shrug my shoulders, because I don’t really know anymore. I thought we were supposed to have the masks, but then only some of us have the masks and some of us don’t. And I’m not mad at anyone for it. You can’t be mad at someone for THEIR OWN comfort. Some of us are getting our hair done and going out to eat and others aren’t ready. Some of us are playing sports and others are waiting. Waiting for a vaccine, or a gong, or a time warp, waiting for an answer. We all want that.

Earlier today, I was running with my bestie and two women walked by walking their dog and one of them literally inhaled away from of us and then covered up her face with her mask before our paths crossed and this offended me zilch, but still I thought, this is weird. Us all operating at our own paces, navigating the mazes in different directions.

On Fathers Day, we had a cookout at my Dad’s house and the kids were in the pool swimming and the giggling and the splashing was normal, but it still felt off somehow. I went up to sit on the porch with the men that always seem to end up there, somehow always facing away from the kids in the pool and I inserted myself into their conversation because I miss them. I miss that. The back and forth of a family conversation. My brother and I haven’t agreed on politics since I was in kindergarten, but we love to rib on each other. But don’t you find political conversation these days to just be a cesspool of suck? I will go into grocery stores and old men will stop me and say

“You don’t have to wear that mask you know, you don’t have to do what Austen Powers says.”

We are all assuming that everyone thinks the same way we do, because it makes sense in our brains, but then the comment hits an offensive home run because not everyone does agree. We are all so divided and that is what I discovered on Fathers Day. I’m not mad at any of my family. I have one of those wonderful families that you might recognize if you have watched the Family Stone, where everyone seems royally screwed up, but they love each other so resolutely that when they come together for the big times and the hard times, other people look around and think man, I wish I had THAT.

I am so lucky with my family, but I think this maze we are going through is just hard. It’s hard and people don’t want to bite their tongue anymore and they shouldn’t, but also some jokes, some phrases, some ribbing, it’s too destructive, too much of an accelerant, that it sends people, namely me into overdrive. I love a good verbal sparring, ask my husband, but then I always dish it out far less than I can take it, because one comment can really crush my soul in the way that it might fall off someone else’s back. I found myself becoming defensive with my family and it was no longer playful or fun, it was hurtful and sad and ugly and this made me feel lousy as I left. I would like to have conversations, I would like to have that playfulness back with my brother and my Dad, but everything seems so charged and raw right now and frankly I don’t even know if I’m saying the right things, or defending ideals the way that I should.

For example, when you get on hot button topics about race, I am no expert, but I know big change needs to happen.

When people talk about law enforcement , I have all good experiences, except for a few minor traffic violations. My view is positive, but I also do not raise my son to be pulled over in a certain way and fear persecution. I have read articles that say we shouldn’t have officers in school anymore and this is also confusing to me. At my school, we have a lot of low income families and kids that come from trauma and I have a police officer that visits all the time, popping in and out of my room, showing his face and his presence and this is not negative.

When I taught kindergarten, I had a little girl who once said to me, I thought those guys, the ones in the suits (she couldn’t say uniforms with her speech issue), came to get my Mom in trouble, but I don’t think they do, I think they came to get me out of the trouble and they make sure of that at school too. She went on to say if you need help Mrs. Grant, out of the trouble, they will come for you too. How astute was she at five-years-old? To make this connection. How wonderful of our Gardiner PD to come in our building and show that officers don’t always come around when there is a problem and that kids don’t have to grow up to cause a problem just because their parents did?

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t police officers that don’t abuse their power. Absolutely I believe that there are and there is that side to the argument too.

That ugliness needs to find the way to the surface and be examined and fleshed out. That is what is difficult about being not just on one side or the other, but being a hybrid and having a foot in both canoes. I can see the hurt and the struggle from all angles and selfishly for me it comes down to how will this affect my own family? My own kids that I am raising and the ones that I teach. I want normalcy and peacefulness and contentment for them and sometimes the world is such an ugly place lately that it makes me feel like we can’t even have these conversations with each other. Like we aren’t ready yet and we need to go to our rooms and think about it.

Does that make any sense? On Father’s Day I said so much profanity in response to my family members jabs, that I left feeling like is it even better to talk about it? Or should we all just sit where we are, and vote how we will. I know this post is rambling terribly and really drawn out, but if you took the time to read it in its entirety. How are you handling all of this? As a parent? As a spouse? As a daughter? Do you engage in political conversations with people or do you just plow ahead, the best way you know how, only keeping your singular family in mind and their personal well being physically and mentally? Some days I do this and shut the world out and then other days I think this is a selfish act and I should do more, say more, be more. I struggled with the beginning of quarantine, but at least I knew what to count on and I had a routine. Now that routine is squashed and new waves of issues come up everyday and no one treats them the same or with any more empathy. What is a girl to do these days?