Please Stop Fucking with My Kid

I've been writing, but not sharing it. Partly, because I'm mid-process in a few novels, so unless you're reading beta versions for me, you'll have to wait. ;) And part because right now nothing makes any sense and everything hurts, and generally I like to wait until I have some hope to offer. But hope is taking too long, so here I go.

Ope, got interrupted by a kid. This time, it was the big one telling me that he loved me and describing the new Legends of Zelda pins he bought at the Nintendo store in San Francisco. I think he was feeling kind of badly because he snapped at me earlier when I was harassing him about what movie he wanted to watch for his birthday.

As of this week, I have a newly minted fourteen year-old. So all of my parenting knowledge is limited to ages none to fourteen. And realistically, I've forgotten everything before six, and I frankly prefer once they can reason and regulate, so don't trust me if I give you advice on parenting anytime before, say, 10. And then nothing once high school starts; I'm not there yet. The window is narrow. And I might be wrong.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, right, everything hurting. Specifically, why do my calves hurt? Both of them? Is it dehyrdation? Lack of some vitamin? Oldness? Fatness? Because I let my subscription run out of my premenopausal vitamins that I assumed weren't doing anything and were costing a fortune? Is it stress? Too much sugar? Did I run a marathon I forgot about? Yes, it's probably that. Can you die from sitting too much and lying about exercising?

Sigh.

Everything feels extra fucked lately. And lonely. Like everything I was taught about right and wrong and goodness prevailing was because those stories sell, but it was all really garbage all along. The betrayal we've experienced over the past few years by people who were meant to love us or provide us care and safety is staggering. I feel like a sucker. Naive, idealistic. Silly. Maybe everyone really is that selfish and simple. Maybe we are all just regurgitators and the message was hate all along.

It feels like the version of how to person that makes sense to me was voted on and everyone else decided "nah" but then no one circled back to tell me.

I'm tired to the marrow. Not depressed this time, since my medication works well to keep the net not too far below me, but I am very tired.

So, we've just finished the school year and survived it, barely. Fighting the people who are supposed to care for your kids is exhausting. There are no real allies and friends, it's all just puffs of smoke in the shape of nice folks. And I don't yet know how not to feel judged and to react like I feel judged when someone criticizes my younger kid or acts like their existence is a problem. You'd think I'd be good at it now, since I've had a queer kid with special needs for a while, but I'm still pretty raw about the whole thing. I'll put it in my "To-Learn" pile, which is fucking high, by the way. Shit's falling off the top, it's all toppling over and whatnot.

The reason I'm sitting here finally writing any of this is that for this second, the kid is OK. They survived. They have a few friends and they like themself right now- despite all the efforts to thwart both. I can think about the toll it's all taking on me for a minute, because we've been addressing the toll it's taken on them adequately.

We've been at it all year...years. The meetings, the angry emails, the sobbing moments in the car, the pleading emails, the horrible phone calls. Again, queer kid, special needs, means like 2% of people are on board with them. It's really hard to identify that 2%.

"Really, I'm shocked by that! I thought in 2025 it would be better!" It's not. "But you live in CALIFORNIA. Isn't it accepted out there?" No. "But...rainbows." :(

And you can't tell the ones who get and like your kid are and who are kind of freaked out and annoyed by them at first because everyone looks and talks and acts the same. They say the right things, up front, and only later, when they've perniciously caused your sweet little person harm do you see the flags in all the red hues that they dropped along the way.

And we feel so stuck.

And we feel so hopeless.

And we're just so fucking exhausted.

BUT because we're the only safe haven for this kid, we have to stay peaceful and positive. We can't let the exhaustion or fear show. We have to play nice with the assholes who have control over our kids' fate. We have to just sit at our computers with achy calves and hope that we're helping more than we're hurting.

I don't know how to wrap this up because nothing feels bow-able. It's all just loose ends flapping in the wind and there's no one to help us collect them and make sense of them.

I will write more soon about what it's like to be a special ed parent and how to not lose your fucking soul in the process. Once I've figured it out.

Until then, peace. Good, fierce, equitable peace.