Hi you.

It's been a few weeks.

Something I've come to understand about myself is that I feel entirely befuddled and fuzzy and discombobulated when I'm having a lot of Big Feelings.

The Big Feelings become manageable and less overwhelming when I can write them into Words That People Read, but when those words are unarticulated, I am useless.

It's a really good time inside my brain.

I know we've talked about this before here, me and you. About the never-ending news cycle and seemingly endless stream of unprecedented news stories.

Once I start to have Big Feelings™ about something and then they don't get expressed before another Big Feelings™ moment comes along, they get all bunched up in my brain.

NARRATOR: Melody's lip did a whole Elvis curl when her fingers typed "bunched up" because she was hoping you could see it and really FEEL it.

This all leads to the eventual meltdown of the Feelings and they come pouring out into something unintelligible, which is also not a lot of fun.

Which is also the longest way possible of telling you that I haven't been able to pinpoint one particular thing to talk about.

I'm outraged about Roe. Just at the point where words don't quite cut it. Shocked, but also not surprised. You know? I feel somehow like I've betrayed everyone by not understanding that this was where the country was headed.

If you feel differently about it, I'd love to talk to you. I would. So much. I hate it with every cell of my body, but I fully understand the moral quagmire that this all becomes.

I'm mad about school board meetings and mass shootings and the ugly, ugly flags that are being flown around my neighborhood.

I'm angry as hell about the dude running for Congress with the words "liberty and freedom" all over his signs, but also has some hideous, discriminatory, misogynistic bullshit all over his Twitter feed. Liberty and freedom for who?

I'm so extraordinarily frustrated at what appears to be just closed off, small-minded behavior from people around me. And then I get that big old guilty feeling that yells YOU SHOULD LOVE THY NEIGHBOR and whatever else God yells at people.

Is that how religion works? God yells, right? It's been awhile since I've been in youth group. It sure seems like that's how it works these days.

I also just dropped my kids off at summer camp for the week, which is making me have more of the Big Feelings™.

I'm staying by myself in a funny little Howard Johnson for the night and WENT TO DINNER ALL BY MYSELF, which made me feel weird and single and cracked me up and reminded me that people probably do this all the time, but when you haven't been single since you were 19 you don't know what to do with it.

I'm staying the night because I'm taking part in a 6-month long Covid study in the morning and it just made sense to drop the kids off and stay since everything is pretty close.

So I'm staying by myself, feeling the big parent feelings, participating in a study for something that has entirely upended my life, and drinking prosecco out of a plastic cup.

Which is so obviously the life story of Hunter S. Thompson, that I probably should skip this newsletter and write the next Fear and Loathing.

ANYWAY. I appreciate you.

I appreciate that you give me a space to feel my Big Feelings™.

It's been a really tough few weeks, months, years.

Thanks for fighting the good fight with me. Or at least hanging on by your fingernails with me.