Plain old boring life

The last time I wrote, I said that my next post would be about plain old boring life again. So I've been hanging around waiting for plain old boring so that I could write my next post. And it hasn't happened.

The week after my parents left, some crazy guy drove a car into a pedestrian zone in my neighborhood, killing six people, including a baby and a nine year old child. I was at work when I heard about it, 50 minutes away from home. And then I realized that Jonathan was supposed to be taking a tram down that very street, on his own, at that very time, coming back from skating camp. So I took a few deep breaths, trying not to panic, and sent a query text to Tim. And fifteen minutes later I knew that my family was ok. Both home, both safe, both ok.

But I'm kind of not ok. Sometimes I still have to take a few deep breaths, trying not to panic, letting my family live life fully rather than hunker down in a bunker somewhere with a two year supply of food and ammunition. Part of the job of being a parent is to let a child swallow up a huge portion of your heart, so that your entire happiness is wrapped up in them, and then let them grow up anyway. You can't put them in a bubble suit, steel reinforced, and follow them around every moment of their life. And even if you could, that wouldn't even necessarily keep them safe. Crazy things happen. And there is a whole third of my heart on the line, but I have to just let it go.

And that was only the first week.

The next week we celebrated Australia day, the national holiday, soon after a presidential inauguration in my home country. We stood and sang the Australian national anthem in church. And in my home country, the crazy guy who was now the president spewed out decree after decree about building walls, banning travel, taking away health care from vulnerable people. He didn't care how many people were hurt and how many everyday lives were disrupted. He didn't need a reason, because he was president. And I started thinking about how beautiful everyday life is, and how great it is to be able to just assume that people try to do the right thing, for good reasons. And how much we will lose if we can't assume that. We will have to hunker down in bunkers with a two year supply of food and ammunition just to protect ourselves from our neighbors. I don't want to live in that world.

Deep breath.

Being anxious makes life difficult. It's hard to focus on research, in particular, when you are worried or upset. And if I can't get my research done, I can't justify writing blog posts for fun. So I just don't do anything. Curl in a ball and dream up the floor plan of my bunker.

I hereby resolve to do a little better.