I’m one of those people who finds a loose thread on my favorite shirt, the kind that dangles so seductively and yet threatens to destroy the item that I love, and I pull it. Maybe not all the way but definitely until the garment is irreparably damaged. This is exactly what I did with my own mental health the weekend they reversed Roe vs. Wade.

Yesterday my kid got in the car, and before we were even a mile away from school, he was sobbing in the passenger seat.

For the past few weeks, while I’m driving back from dropping a kid at school or attending a final meeting, I find myself winding my way through the hills of Oak View and crying.

We are on Day 4 of a teen mental meltdown and we are exhausted. The tears, the silence, the blind fear gripping her by the ankles, dragging her down. It takes every ounce of strength I have to hold onto her, pull her up and out, back into the light.

Yesterday I watched a man have a mini panic attack in the grocery store. He wandered into this aisle and stopped dead before the lone super pack of toilet paper. Judging by the look on his face he’d just vomited in his mouth a little.

This place. It forces me to breathe. In my little sea level life I take sips of air, just enough to move forward, get me to my next target. But not this place.

Please reach out to one person in your life this holiday season who is a total pain in the ass.

In all of my excitement and anticipation at sharing the magic of a night under the stars dancing amidst hundreds of ecstatic people I lost sight of one key factor: my 12 year old can’t do concerts.