A few days after the election, my brother texted me. While we hadn’t yet spoken, I had posted about canceling our Thanksgiving plans and had a feeling the ripples would start hitting shore. While the text was far from perfect, he hit upon some of the basic ways anyone who voted for Trump can care for the people in their lives reeling from this election.

Waking up and telling Michael that Trump won the election was like finding out Dad was locked in the nursing home with COVID all over again. I felt, and continue to feel, small, helpless, horrified. The top of my To Do list reads:

1. Confirm Michael’s prescription refills and continue researching international healthcare policies.

2. Re-submit Michael’s paperwork to NYC for birth certificate change.

3. Help Parker’s partner get a passport.

4. Cancel Thanksgiving.

There are twenty-one days until the 2024 election. Looking at the last seven days of our lives, four of them contained crying. Wait. Make that five.

I’m typing this on the first desktop computer I’ve owned since the 90’s, on a desk stocked with Uni Ball pens and my glitter collection, in my very own office with my very own door. I’ve been dreaming of this moment for months.

For the second time in two weeks, I have accidentally super glued my fingers. The first was in trying to glue the handle back onto my rice cooker after the cord wrapped around my leg, dragging it off of the counter, causing it to smash on the floor.

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.

In my last post Pride, I noticed (after re-reading my work at least 25 times) that I had committed the crime of gender bias. This was truly an ironic piece of work given that Pride is an article that newly announced to the world my transgender son. I asked my readers if they too found the error. None of them did.

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

In about two weeks, the Home and Garden Television Network will be calling to tell me I’ve won their Dream House Sweepstakes and the people of Warren, VT are waiting with open arms.

Lesson #3 of Nervous Breakdowns: Ignore your sick child.

The first day of my freshman year of high school, I almost vomited because I’d heard about Freshmen Kill Day and was certain I’d come home with boogers in my hair.

Hard not to feel the sting of separation this holiday locked away from our families and friends. Usually I’d put out my grandmother’s cut glass olive dish, a tablecloth I stole from Mom and fill GG’s vintage Bacardi trifle dish to make them feel closer. But all of it, like ourselves, is locked away for another time.

But the true gift of my garden isn’t the food but the moments when I connect my loss or my win with the way the world works— experiencing the macrocosm in the microcosm.

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

‘Family’ is most certainly the ‘F’ word. Fierce. Freakish. Fantasmagoric. (Look it up.) Fun. And yes, the word you immediately thought of as well.