Okay, let’s just chill for a second.
Let’s just chill.
Because my anxiety is already at an 11, and the Cadbury Creme Eggs were not on clearance at 7 p.m., which was very un-Christian of Meijer.
Southeast Michigan is flooded, including my favorite spot to sit and listen to the river, which is seasonally appropriate but bad for whatever’s trying to get out of my subconscious.
My cats are annoyed with me for reasons that remain unclear.
I accidentally started a YA romance trilogy that does not exist in any local library or online system, so now I’m waiting on ThriftBooks like it’s 2007 just to find out what happens next.
And somewhere in San Jose, a stranger spent several minutes on my blog, which is either flattering or unsettling depending on which of my two current moods I’m inhabiting.
Also—there’s the war thing.
I don’t like the war thing.
There are moments where I’m just vibing on Pepcid on my couch with a heating pad and a cat in my lap, filling out Instructional Design job applications with my trusty AI bot, listening to something classical, convinced that everything is going to be fine if I just keep moving forward, like the good girl I know I am.
And then there are moments where I’m sitting in a county park parking lot with my pink Hydroflask, listening to Hook by Blues Traveler on repeat, wondering if it’s time to go to Canada.
It’s so incredibly close to time to go to Canada.
My pattern recognition is screaming, Do these people have any idea what they’re doing?
And the answer is yes.
They are doing this on purpose.
I cannot personally imagine wanting to do this on purpose, but those people are.
They don’t need to break us all at once. They just need to keep us slightly off balance—hungry, irritated, tired, and reactive.
We’ll complain about $6 gas and $8 chips and still drive to the beach this summer.
We’ll be shocked when something escalates somewhere else—but not in our hometown. Not yet.
We’ll send thoughts and prayers and then yell at someone in traffic on the way home.
Those people want us pissed off.
They want that little spike of adrenaline every time something small goes wrong.
We don’t need anything external to take us down. We’ll do it to ourselves if we’re not careful.
So I’ll order my books. And then I’ll order more.
I’ll keep using my AI to tailor my resumes.
I’ll wait for Canada to decide if I’m a citizen, since my grandmother’s mother never got the chance to decide for herself.
I’ll calm my 18-year-old when weird Selective Service mail shows up and remind him that an autism diagnosis and a heart murmur count for something in this world.
And then I’ll breathe.
In for four. Out for six.
I’ll take the magnesium.
I’ll pet whatever cat’s within reach.
I’ll eat something that used to be alive in the ground.
Not because it fixes anything. But because it keeps me bending, not breaking.
When I do that, I’m changing their game.
We don’t break.
They don’t win.