Blue

Less than three minutes.  The walk from our new home to the public elementary school the girls were supposed to attend this year takes less than 3 minutes.  That's the number one reason we chose the home, which is lovely and suits us well but we had a perfectly lovely home that suites us well before we moved, except that it wasn't a three minute walk away from the school.  We didn't live in the neighborhood with their would-be classmates.  

Marcos first raised interest in living in the neighborhood surrounding the school during Eden's kindergarten year last year.  I was easily sold on the idea, as I was bussed out of my home school neighborhood starting in the 3rd grade.  I rarely got to go to a friend's house after school, and even less frequently was able to have friends over to my house.  I loved the idea of cooking dinner in the kitchen for the girls' friends once in a while, and being able to walk their friends home down the street.  

Like a fool, I honestly believed we would be returning to school in two weeks - Maybe after Easter break.  As we signed the closing documents on our home, I certainly didn't think we would not be returning to school in the fall.  Sitting on the school campus, reviewing enrollment documents for Delilah with the staff, I believed that this Wednesday, August 12, I would be taking that three minute walk, the girls' hands in mine, to their first day of 1st grade and TK.  

Things aren't going to play out the way I had hoped.  

The school, along with all of the other schools in the district, will be starting the fall with distance learning.  We've made the very difficult decision to withdraw the girls from the public school system for now.  I still find myself vacillating as to whether we are doing the right thing for our children, just as I am sure the people who made this decision for the public schools have wavered themselves.  I don't know what the right decision is this moment, and I know that we will still be seeing the repercussions of today's decisions many years down the road.  My only goal is to mitigate the disruption to Eden's and Delilah's lives.  5 months ago they were abruptly shut out of school and other public places, isolated from their grandparents and their cousins and friends.  The same thing that every other child was going through, except every other child isn't mine - Eden and Delilah are mine.  They sacrificed without being asked if they were willing to sacrifice.  And now I am angry that we couldn't pull together as a community to sacrifice for all of our children and I'm driven now by what is best for them.  

I do understand that everyone's plans for this school year have changed.  

But I'm tired of having to change my plans.  And even more than that, I'm tired of being told I just need to change my plans and roll with the punches, as though the punches don't suck.  

Having my children attend school, just as I attended school and my parents attended school and as we have structured our society for decades now, didn't seem like so much to hope for. 

Having my son live for 11 days didn't seem like so much to hope for.  

9 and a half years ago my dreams for my son were shattered with three words:  "Incompatible with life."  So why should three words, "All distance learning," be so devastating now?  But they are.  Words can't express how defeated I feel right now.  Why can't shit just go right?   That's about all I can come up with. 

This is my annual "Blue" entry.  I usually write this entry in June, around the time of Gabriel's birthday or anniversary of his passing, depending on the time, and when the words find their way to my brain and out through my fingertips.  Two months have passed since Gabriel's 9th birthday, and I still don't have the words.  Every ounce of my brain power goes to my job, which has become increasingly stressful as we still have not been permitted to return to in-person appearances.  Every bit of my creative thought goes into figuring out how to reassemble a  sense of normalcy for my daughters.  Every day I find myself teetering on the edge of a hideous breakdown and wanting to flee, but there's no where to go and so every day I find myself resenting the trap I am in, but knowing that some degree of lockdown is still what the community needs.  I would go to the bar and have a drink and a think on the issue, but, you know. 

I think some people find the response easy:  We definitely should be locked down, or we definitely shouldn't be locked down.  I envy them.  But I think most of us are somewhere in the middle.  I don't know what's best.  I know I worry for my mental health every day.  For as long as I can remember, I spend most days fighting thoughts that I am worthless, and now our culture is largely telling me, "Yes, Andrea, you are in fact worth less than the person who you may or may not infect."  So I tell myself, "They're right.  You're not that important."  Every day, I have to look for a reason to live.  Sometimes the reason comes easily, when I first hear the girls stir in the morning.  Other days, it's not so easy to find, on those days when I genuinely believe the girls would be better off without a mother who has to regularly claw her way out of depression and anxiety.  On those days the reasons may be as big as fear of hell, to wanting to know the judge's decision in a pending trial, to the season premier of The Handmaid's Tale being so close if I could just not kill myself today. I always find a reason and I suspect I always will but my guess is I will always struggle.

So maybe that's why I like a plan.  A calendar of deadlines to keep me from dying so that there's always one more reason ahead of me. 

I was really looking forward to that first walk to school with my girls, and even if I mark my calendar for next year, I'm not sure how I'm going to make it there.