Wednesday is for Working Drafts

Monday a cold rain moved into Atlanta so suddenly that my oldest texted me after school, not feeling safe to finish the walk home by herself. Worried about both the kids – the youngest was in an after-school activity and unable to use her phone until it was done – I spent money we didn’t really have to catch a ride share to a restaurant across from the High School. There the oldest and I shared an appetizer and passed the time working on a college scholarship entry while we waited to hear from the youngest.

I worried. It was dark, and in this time of constant communication, being unable to contact a kid for even a couple of hours was nerve-wracking. Kids get hit by cars on the edge of their High School campus at least once a year. But of course, she was fine, just late. The youngest hustled into the restaurant, and because it was pouring again, I paid for another cab to drive us the mile home. Money flows away from me constantly, and I feel powerless to stop the losses. I did gain some unexpected precious time with the teens, so that was something.

The fog rolled in on Tuesday, covering all of us in Atlanta in a blanket to dampen the anxiety around the run-off election for senate. I tried not to hold my breath all day, waiting for word of a line shooter or other violence, but Georgia made it through with no big incidents. An awful lot of people worked hard to make sure we can still vote without stabbings or gun violence at the polls, but that’s never felt like so near a thing in my lifetime as it did this week. I expect the violence now will come this weekend, or over the holidays. The idea that there will be no political violence over a contest so close is laughable. There’s too many guns, and too much rhetoric in the air.

I told the girls via text Wednesday to make sure that if they must stay after school to leave campus by 4:30 or call for a ride. It’s the darkest part of the year, and I’m preparing them to move around the city as grown-ups do, but they aren’t grown-up yet. The oldest has probably reached her adult height, but still has that lean look of a person not yet fished in her maturity. The youngest is growing very tall like me, taller than her sister already, but has the movement style of her age, easily identifiable as a very young person from a distance. They don’t behave like targets but could be mistaken as vulnerable if alone in the dark. Their walk from school is along a path with lots of traffic and potential help, but I have to worry when there’s not so much light.

When I post this, it will be the second Thursday in the month, and rent still isn’t paid in full. A friend recently offered me a spot in a great burn camp in February, and I know I should tell him I can’t go. I want to go, but even if everything else about the trip was free, I couldn’t afford the transportation. The burn is in Miami, besides. I’ve tried to have fun on Miami before – it never works out, probably because I don’t do the kind of drugs that seem popular there. I could use a week near a beach without the chemical fires, hurricane threats, and homeland security lectures I had on Jekyll, but it’s not in the cards right now.

We’re eighteen months out from the oldest child going off to university, and thirty-six months out from having both the babies be legal adults. I’m not ready for a trip to a burn in Miami, but I might be in a few years. It’s strange to be in this holding pattern, still circling the nest even while the kids get ready to fly, aware that at any minute a careless driver or domestic terrorist could set all our futures back and away after so much work. It happens every day, in this neighborhood – a hit and run, a rapist, gun violence. I have to make an effort not to think about what could happen and focus on the good things. It isn’t easy. It’s 2022, and the world is on fire. We’re all just doing our best.