I Would Like To...

I have quite a few things I'd like to blog about today...

I'd like to write about how my company will be "requesting" that  employees return to the office three days a week starting in May.  This only pertains to all teams who have an office site.  (I didn't have one for 2 years, but last April they opened up a new office in Newark, where my "team" was to work.  Of course my "team" consists of 3 people including myself, my boss and another person who works on a completely different "brand" than I do, but...)  The reasoning behind this is " Much of our industry is operating under similar policy, and the leadership teams believes that we are simply better when we are together." (So if everyone in our industry jumped off a cliff, should we consider that too?  And if we are "better" when we are together, how come there are so few people on the floor?  Furthermore, those people who are on my floor and the majority of those on the "cool" floor below me, I don't interact with at all  unless we pass in the hallway and say hello.)  I want to write about how frustrated I am that this will triple my weekly commuting cost, which are lower than most because I am not paying $20+ a day to park my car when I can walk down and get a bus which costs less than half of that round trip, even if it isn't the most convenient thing in the world for me.  I'd like to point out how tone deaf this leadership seems to be, but I'm not going to do that today.

I'd like to write about my struggles with handling my father's healthcare and finances.  To talk about how stressful this situation is for everyone involved.  I make decisions that I constantly question myself on.  Am I doing the right thing?  Am I doing the wrong thing?  When it turns out that I am just doing (https://bfthsboringblog.blogspot.com/2023/03/when-there-is-no-right-answer.html).  That this is all I can do, but it is not all of what I feel that I should do, but I don't know what I could do.   That is situation seems to be neverending and how the weight of all of this breaks me at times, even as I push on.  That while I have support, it's never enough (and never could be).  How I'd like to take a vacation, even just for a few days, away from everything and everybody and not think about anything at all.  (Even though I know that is not possible.)  But I'm not going to do that today.

I'd like to write about my son's trip to Walt Disney World last week.  To share everything he's told me; to try and live through his experience.  About how he and his classmates had to spend nearly eight hours in the airport on the way home as their flight was delayed, and delayed, and delayed.  I'd like to bitch about airlines and why does this ALWAYS seem to happen.  (Even though I haven't flown since June of 2016 and I really don't want to go through all the hassle of it again, but I would really like to travel.  But then...well see the paragraph above.)  I'd like to write about today, but I'm not going to.

Why am I not writing about any of these things today?  Because of  Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney.  Because of Cynthia Peak,  Katherine Koonce and Mike Hill.  (If you need to Google that, do so now.)  Because we, as a country, failed them.  Just as we failed the many before them. Too many for me to even write about...I can't because it's just too darned painful and yet my pain is nothing.  Because I am one of the lucky ones.  My child has not been gunned down in school.  

We continue to fail.  We ALLOW our elected officials to fail.  We make excuses and pull out platitudes, but we do nothing.

So I can say nothing.  I cannot write about what I want to because when I think of the children...I can say nothing.

And clearly, we live in a country where we should say nothing and do nothing.  Where we should send out children off to school, knowing that they could be another statistic of gun violence.  What can I say?

What can I say?